House of The Dragon childbirth scene

[ReeseWitherfork]

(Sorry if this has been discussed, couldn’t see it anywhere?)

Anyone else find the childbirth scene just too much? A quick google tells me the producers apparently showed it to the women in their lives who said it needed to be more traumatic if anything. Important to show how horrific and dangerous childbirth can be. Especially with Roe v Wade etc.

So part of me thinks I’m burying my head in the sand for not being able to stomach it. But a bigger part of me thinks I know how the dangers of childbirth and I don’t want to see it messed about with for entertainment purposes. Such a detailed scene seems distastefully “shock value” and nothing more.

Any thoughts or opinions?

I mean you could turn it off and not watch

I had a fairly traumatic experience with a back to back baby totally stuck - i ended up In absolute agony even early in labour - if I didn’t get my emergency c section we would have just died in absolutely the worst pain

a “friend” of mine said she would have come out eventually - woman have been having babies for thousands of years - doctors jump to c sections and intervention too easily these days - and I thought right but for thousands of years woman also died in child birth

so yes probably good to show that once in a while to remind people of that.

www.google.com/amp/s/digpodcast.org/2021/08/22/none-of-woman-born-cesarean-birth-before-1900-a-pre-history/amp/

Thanks @resuwen, that link is fascinating!

(I’d also recommend The Rest is History podcast episode on the history of childbirth, that @Blaengwnfi linked to, I’m another who enjoyed that)

I can understand why so many people found it unbearable, there's still a big taboo around gore involving childbirth and babies, whereas I've seen someone getting their head smashed in with a blunt force weapon in countless films and tv shows, it doesn't get the visceral reaction it used to.

This exact scenario might not be 100% historically accurate, but there were cases where a royal mother or child was essentially killed by the medical treatment that they got (I recall one account of a baby surviving multiple bloodlettings only because the wet nurse hid him from the doctors that were bleeding him until he recovered). It really painted Viserys into a desperate corner, if he lost the child then he was stuck putting either a violent madman or a woman on the throne after him and neither was considered a viable option. Plus if you read the book then you know that the previous king had many children with his wife but Daemon and Viserys himself were the only surviving heirs. It's hard to get all that across in one episode, I think the show did well to show how mercenary the succession crisis was.

Having had a baby a couple of weeks ago, one that did not engage whilst I screamed about the amount of pain I was in and knowing something was wrong, in the past this could have been me. It was far too late and complicated for a C-section, I'm still coming to terms with the fact either me, baby or both of us may not have made it. So watching the scene made me teary and grateful for the NHS.

It was and is a reality of childbirth which is not promised and unpredictable. I have a friend who told me that she thought pregnancy and childbirth were a doddle beyond the over hyped screaming in labour seen in films and TV.

Anyway, the scene built a character for me, just imagine having to make such a big decision and it not going to plan. Or even being the sibling/older child in that situation. It was harrowing but part of a wider story.

Absolutely - DS was an oblique breech, head by my spleen and bum by my appendix. With vasa praevia. And an abruption. Neither of us could have survived without a c-section - he was not coming out down the birth canal.

Notadultingtoday Sybil's death in Downton really upset me. It was so shockingly unexpected from that show and I was pregnant at the time.

Haven't seen House of the Dragon yet but I would expect stuff like this from a GOT prequel. Does it come with a 'graphic scenes of childbirth' warning? Because to be fair the usual graphic content isn't that relatable to the vast majority of the audience, but this could be so maybe it should

Here’s an opinion piece in today’s New York Times:

On the HOD birth scene.

Great on you for being honest about what you want and thanks for the compliment about those who do go through it. :)