According to an ABC News report from late last week, a 23-year-old Minnesota woman will give birth to her child live on the Internet. For the past few months, the woman whose online user name is “Lynsee” has been sharing daily details about her pregnancy on the social network MomsLikeMe.
When she gives birth in the next few days, more than a thousand women who already follow her online — plus anyone else with a high-speed Internet connection — will be able to watch a live broadcast of her child’s birth from their computers.
When she gives birth, a cameraman will be in the hospital room, along with her husband, her mother and her midwife. A second camera will be mounted in the corner, with care taken that no graphic shots will be taken. In addition to the live broadcast, anyone registered with her group on MomsLikeMe will be able to *chat* with Lynsee while she’s in the delivery room. (But won’t she be busy?)
Julie Taylor, senior editorial producer for Los Angeles-based MomLogic.com and mother of two, said that when she first heard about Lynsee’s project she thought “Wow! I would never do that.” But she acknowledged that younger mothers have grown up in a very different technological landscape.
“They’ve lived more of their lives online,” she said. “For them, they’ve video-taped most of their lives anyway and they’ve grown up on reality TV. So maybe it’s an old-fashioned notion to think twice.”
Gwynn Cassidy, online director for the Internet resource HealthyWomen.org said that while not many women may choose to broadcast their child’s birth live, many more are turning to new media to share milestones and first-person stories.
MediaCurves.com conducted a study among 303 viewers of a news clip discussing a woman who plans to broadcast coverage of her giving birth on the internet. Results found majority of viewers (75%) reported that they would not watch the coverage of the delivery. Furthermore, the majority of viewers (53%) did not think there was educational value in broadcasting video coverage of child birth on the internet. In addition, the majority of viewers (60%) did not think it was ethical to put such video content online.
More in depth results can be seen at:
http://www.mediacurves.com/NationalMediaFocus/J7622-OnlineBirth/Index.cfm
Thanks,
Ben