Dramatic Look at Realities of Childbirth Around the World

Myth would have it that Baby New Year crawls onto the scene today: cute, carefree and adorned with a “Happy 2002” banner. And then there’s the reality of childbirth: painful, bloody and often dangerous.

“World Birth Day” (9 tonight, TLC) takes an unflinching look at the latter, through the experiences of 11 women in nine countries on one July day last year.

Although its goals are noble--to celebrate childbirth and to teach about the varying conditions and cultures in which babies are born--the documentary provides so much clinical detail that it will no doubt drive many squeamish viewers away.

That’s a shame, because the story behind each birth contains drama and yields insight into societies ranging from Communist China to India to Germany. Here is just one tale:

In Nazareth, Ethiopia, the filmmakers follow Gize, a young woman expecting her first child with her husband, Meles, who is away on military duty. Most Ethiopian women, narrator Matthew Modine says, go to the hospital to give birth only if there’s a complication, and such is the case with Gize. She can’t push the baby out by herself.

At the hospital, two babies have already died that night, and a third was stillborn.

Though Gize delivers a healthy boy, she suffers bleeding that temporarily endangers her life.

When she finally goes home to her mud house, Gize and son will spend 40 days in bed behind curtains and shuttered windows in accordance with tradition and a belief that outside air is harmful.

If stories such as this sound fascinating, though, be forewarned. These two hours will be difficult viewing for anyone who squirms at the sight of women in states of undress writhing in agony, injections, blood, close-up shots of vaginal births and C-sections or a stillborn child.

Many of the fathers themselves found it tough, and the film spares few opportunities to make fun of them for their squeamishness. It seems more than a bit unfair, especially after we learn that one San Francisco couple, both father and mother, dropped out of Lamaze class because they couldn’t take watching the videos.