Over on CNN (because I check legit news sources when the gossip is dry) I found a video report about an upcoming show on TLC called Labor Games. (This has been out a couple of weeks, but it’s news to me.) The show transforms pregnant women’s hospital delivery rooms into a game show, complete with blinking lights, oversized binky graphics and a giant flat screen TV with baby-centric trivia questions. Contestants can win prizes including baby clothing, a stroller and up to $10,000. Not to worry, though, you can keep track of the participants’ labor at home with their handy on-screen labor monitor, which alerts you to active contractions and lists the time between contractions and the number of centimeters the contestant’s cervix is dilated. It’s ridiculous, it’s offensive, it’s intrusive and it’s dangerous to have pregnant women get surprised by a TV crew at a time when they may need life saving medical intervention for themselves or their babies.

“This is a really bad idea”
ABC News’s chief medical officer, Dr. Richard Besser, stated the obvious about this ill-conceived game show:

“During labor, emergencies can arise. This is one of the most important moments in your life. I think this is a really bad idea, to have a camera come in at that moment of your life.”

ABC News had a brief interview with the couple above, who gave birth to a healthy baby boy afterwards. They said it was worth it. What’s more is that supposedly “no one participates without prior consent.” While expectant couples may not know if they were selected to participate in the ‘interrupt your delivery sweepstakes’ (my words) they supposedly know that there’s a possibility it could happen.

“This is a high stakes medical situation”
Another ABC news medical expert, Dr. Jennifer Ashton, said that she’s delivered about 1,5000 babies and that things usually go smoothly but that “Things can… go wrong in a big way really fast. This is a high stakes medical situation, but I can guarantee that if there were a severe and serious obstetric emergency, those cameras would be out of the room.” I wouldn’t be so sure about that.

Here’s the thing, the people who participate in this may have agreed to it, but what about the medical personnel on the ward and the other women nearby? This is a huge distraction. If I was having a baby or working as nurse and I had to hear people playing a game show in the next room I would be so pissed off. Of course you can personally opt out of participating in a game show when the delivery of your child is imminent, but it affects so many other people.

TLC is of course the network which has not yet cancelled 19 Kids and Counting, which probably knew for years about Josh Duggar’s molestation of his sisters (or at the very least willfully ignored the rumors) and continued to air the show as normal, and which brought us such other gems as Freaky Eaters, My Strange Addiction and Virgin Diaries. This show is just about par for the course for them.

Here’s another video where they surprise a couple at 1:30 in the morning in active labor. If this couple agreed to participate ahead of time, they don’t seem to have remembered it.