Notes From the Underbelly

The ABC comedy Notes From the Underbelly disappointed me the other night.

I had previously read the book that the comedy is based on, and thought that the book was well-written and very funny, However, I did not like how the book handled her birth. I liked it even less in the tv version.

Now I know that tv is not reality, and that a comedy is going to exaggerate things, and not get things right. I get that. I can watch birth episodes of other comedies and yes I roll my eyes at the inaccuracies....but they're funny.

This episode was neither accurate nor funny.

In the episode Lauren is 37 weeks pregnant, seeing an OB, nearing the end of a normal healthy pregnancy. She is about 2 hours away from home with her husband and has some abdominal cramping. Her husband insists that they have it checked out at the nearest hospital. The OB tells her that her blood pressure is high, which is a sign of pre-eclampsia, and that she must have an emergency c-section.

WHAT????

When Lauren expresses the desire to go and see her regular doctor, she is told that that is not an option. She is told she has no choice but to have a cesarean in a hospital 100 miles away from home, with a doctor she just met, with a baby who is on the edge of prematurity.

They took ONE blood pressure reading, and called an emergency cesarean based on that.

Other inaccuracies:

In the surgery, Dad is seated by mom's stomach and there is no curtain. Riiiight.

After the birth, the baby goes to the warmer, where the OB goes over and counts fingers and toes and wraps baby in a blanket. Somehow finishing up the surgery is done by someone else while the OB takes care of the baby, and by the time he has baby in a blanket, mom is all closed up, sitting up in bed, and ready to hold her baby.

I wasn't expecting accuracy, but portraying a cesarean as a very minor surgical procedure, with mom able to sit up and hold her baby 10 minutes after the baby is born is so far from reality it isn't funny.

And I'm sure that there are some pregnant women who watched this episode who are now wondering if one elevated blood pressure reading is all that stands between them and a cesarean birth.

If ABC wanted to get some ideas on how to do a comedy birth, they should have watched Friends. Or Mad About You. Or even The Cosby Show. Their birth episodes had their inaccuracies as well, but at least they were funny.