Showing posts with label childbirth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label childbirth. Show all posts

Monday, October 1, 2012

Teen Mom: Season 1 Review

Teen Mom: Season 1
Average Reviews:

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This is the best seaon no one should compare the girls to Maci and the rest minus amber lol but love it there sweet girls and love watching there crazy lives! Farah is my fave girl she pretty taned and sweet!

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In 16 and Pregnant, they were moms-to-be. Now, follow Farrah, Maci, Amber, and Catelynn as they face the challenges of their first year of motherhood.
This product is manufactured on demand using DVD-R recordable media. Amazon.com's standard return policy will apply.\r\n
This disc is expected to play back in DVD Video "play only" devices, and may not play in other DVD devices, including recorders and PC drives. \r\n

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Tuesday, August 21, 2012

16 & Pregnant, Season 1 Review

16 and Pregnant, Season 1
Average Reviews:

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The show is terrific. It sheds realism onto the difficult and controversial topic of teen pregnancy. Instead of irresponsibly trivializing the issue, "16 and Pregnant" focuses on the hard-core real-life drama of having a baby and raising it while still being a teenager. The episodes often have re-curring sub-topics, such as parental relationship to the pregnant teenager, finishing high school/earning a GED while pregnant, facing the intense demands of a screaming newborn, trying to keep your relationship going strong while coping with a child.....etcetera....the only downside to ordering the DVD, that you should expect ( I wish somebody had told me this before I ordered the DVD ) is not to see the episode "Unseen Moments: Season One". In the first season of "16 and Pregnant", we had six hour-long episodes sharing the stories of teen parents. After the last parent's episode, we had one episode that was the "Reunion Special" and we had the episode "Unseen Moments: Season One". "Reunion Special" IS included on the DVD, but the "Unseen Moments: Season One" episode is not. Kind of a drag, since technically it IS part of the first season. There are also no English subtitles, so some of the dialogue is difficult to understand.
As for a summary of the stories in Season One, here is a brief synopsis:
Episode #1: "Maci". Maci is an overachieving teen whose life heads in a whole new direction after she gets pregnant. Her fiancee, Ryan, is very immature and Maci is not sure if she can depend on him or not.
Episode #2: "Farrah". Farrah is a pregnant teen who risks losing her friends due to her pregnancy. She also has issues getting along with her parents and finding the right place for herself emotionally.
Episode #3: "Amber": Amber is an expectant teen who drops out of high school and moves in with her older boyfriend, Gary. The pregnancy and the animosity between themselves and their families threatens to destroy their relationship.
Episode #4: "Ebony": Ebony is a teen mom-to-be who is trying to maintain her high goals, along with her impending motherhood. She and her slacker fiancee, Josh, try to deal with making sacrifices in order to make their family work.
Episode #5: "Whitney": Whitney is a childish yet likable pregnant teen who is trying improve her living situation with her boyfriend, Weston, her mother ( who is also pregnant ), her mother's boyfriend, and her grandmother.
Episode #6: "Catelynn": Catelynn is an expectant teen from the wrong side of the tracks. She is fortunately in a good relationship with her boyfriend Tyler, but the couple faces the toughest decision of their lives-adoption-without their families' support.
Tough stuff. Emotional.
The "Reunion Special" episode is on the special features disc. It is a Q&A forum with the teen mothers and a live audience. It is very interesting and Dr. Drew Pinsky does a very good job of neutrally hosting it.
I would recommend this show to teen moms, young moms, or even anybody who knows a teen mom or a young mom. If I had watched this show as a teenager, I would have looked at it from a teenager's point of view, and the parents' opinions in the show probably would have annoyed me. But now I am an adult, and I can see both sides-the parents' points-of-view, and also the angst-ridden points-of-view from the teenage moms and their boyfriends.
Very good show. Just wish the DVD was better :-(

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MTV's 16 and Pregnant is an hour-long documentary series focusing on the controversial subject of teen pregnancy. Each episode follows a 5-7 month period in the life of a teenager as she navigates the bumpy terrain of adolescence, growing pains, rebellion, and coming of age; all while dealing with being pregnant. Each story offers a unique look into the wide variety of challenges pregnant teens face: marriage, adoption, religion, gossip, finances, rumors among the community, graduating high school, getting (or losing) a job. Faced with incredibly adult decisions, these girls are forced to sacrifice their teenage years and their high school experiences. But there is an optimism among them; they have the dedication to make their lives work, and to do as they see fit to provide the best for their babies.
This product is manufactured on demand using DVD-R recordable media. Amazon.com's standard return policy will apply.\r\n
This disc is expected to play back in DVD Video "play only" devices, and may not play in other DVD devices, including recorders and PC drives. \r\n

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Monday, March 12, 2012

Bringing Baby Home: The Ultimate Baby Care DVD (2005) Review

Bringing Baby Home: The Ultimate Baby Care DVD (2005)
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This newborn care DVD is strictly for caring for a newborn infant, in other words, what you learn here won't apply after the first 3 or 4 weeks. My biggest beef with this DVD is that it totally just skims over all the basics, such as how to breastfeed properly, how to bottlefeed properly, how to swaddle properly, how to calm a baby properly, etc. All the stuff you want to know about looking after a newborn, each is given about 5 seconds of screen time. Instead, the bulk of the program is wasted on things like "pre-birth preparation," which interestingly appears toward the end of the program, and how the mother should take care of herself. These are important things to know, but not for a "ultimate baby care DVD."
The DVD packaging is also very misleading. It says "over an hour of hints"... but that includes 1 minute of copyright warning and another 30 seconds of "you should always consult your doctor" warning, plus a long end-of-program credit. The actual content is about 55 minutes.
I've seen this DVD and the "ABC of Newborn Baby Care" DVD and even though the latter is not great, it's better because it goes through the important topics step-by-step, and the nurse/midwife demonstrates the techniques clearly. Between the two DVDs, I definitely recommend the latter.
BTW, you can likely find this at your local library. It's also available from Netflix. It's just not worth the price of the DVD, not even 1/10 of the price.

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Bringing Baby Home is the ultimate how-to baby care DVD. Featuring over 100 topics, the DVD combines expert advice, step-by-step demonstrations and lots of mom-tested tips.Winner of a prestigious 2005 Parents' Choice Approved Award, the DVD deals with four themes: the basics, feeding, hygiene and sleep and coping. Like a prenatal class on DVD. Great for dads who don't want to read books on baby care. The DVD features real newborns, parents and baby care experts - no actors!

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Thursday, September 1, 2011

The Business of Being Born (2008) Review

The Business of Being Born (2008)
Average Reviews:

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The film does a good job of explaining the "intervention cycle" that is so common in medicalized births--the mother is hooked up to intravenous tubes and all sorts of technology, and thus there is inevitable pressure to use (or misuse that technology). Anesthetics, which are supposed to ease the pain, lead to slowdown in the birth process, which leads to more intervention (pitocin etc.) and oftentimes to "crisis" into which the physician steps to save the day. The film gives a fair amount of attention to the power of the physician over against the mother in medicalized birth. The portrayal of the respectful and extremely helpful manner in which home birth midwives work comes across very well.
We give the film a four-star rating instead of five for several reasons. We think it does not do quite well enough at explaining the reasons why home birthers do certain things--for example, why they often choose water birth. Why husbands/partners might not wear a shirt when assisting the mother. Why the home setting is generally superior to the hospital setting in terms of exposure to dangerous microbes. There are good reasons for all these things, but they're not really explained in the film.
We think the film dwells excessively on the experiences of the director (Cara) and upon Ricki Lake. It's fine to have these folks profiled in the film we just think they take too much screen time that could have been better used educate people further about non-medicalized birth. This is one reason that the film starts to languish a bit in the second half. Some of the language used on the film (casual swearing) will be unnecessarily offensive to many home birthers and potential home birthers. The film did not mention the religious reasons some people choose home birth (we'd have loved to see interviews with Amish home birthers, for example). We did think the contributions of Michael Odent, Ina Gaskin, and the other midwives (and the back-up doctor) were portrayed very well.
We have had six home births (four with well-trained midwives). Our midwives definitely went the extra mile for us, and were genuinely interested not only in "getting the baby out" but in all aspects of prenatal, delivery, and early infant care. They were extremely generous in their time and expertise. In terms of theoretical and practical knowledge, our trained midwives were the equal if not superior to the typical birth-attending physician. This perspective comes across pretty well on the film.
All in all, this is a good film. It could be quite a bit better in terms of explaining non-medicalized birth to people who are unfamiliar with it. But it's a good start and we recommend it to anyone interested in the topic.

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BUSINESS OF BEING BORN - DVD Movie

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