Risky, Dramatic, and Unrealistic: Reality Television Portrayals of Pregnancy and Childbirth and their Effects on Women's Fear and Self-Efficacy

Because portrayals of pregnancy and childbirth on reality television (TV) often highlight risk, drama, and the use of medical interventions, it is possible that exposure to this content could influence women's fear of childbirth and childbirth self-efficacy. To test this question, we conducted an experiment among 213 undergraduate women who were assigned to view a video clip of either medicalized births from reality TV, midwife-attended births from reality TV, or a neutral childbirth education clip. Findings indicated that childbirth attitudes did vary across conditions, with participants in the medicalized condition reporting the highest fear of childbirth and lowest childbirth self-efficacy. Participants' feelings about potential pregnancy also varied depending on the clip viewed. Because the likelihood of witnessing a birth in person before becoming pregnant is lower than in previous years, these findings have significant implications for how women form their understandings of pregnancy and childbirth.