10 worst movie labour scenes

The shocking

Knocked Up

If you’ve seen this film then your stomach is probably already churning at the memory of the birth scene. If you haven’t, well, put it this way – seeing Alison Scott’s (Katherine Heigl) crowning baby close up, on a cinema screen, without any warning (aside from the general labour-induced screaming) is enough to make you throw your popcorn a foot in the air. You have been warned…

The shocking

The Back-Up Plan

Oddly enough, though Jennifer Lopez is the lead in this film, it’s not her eardrum-tearing diva-like screams that provide the shock factor. From a happy-go-lucky story about a woman trying to find love, get married and have children, it turns into a horrific portrayal of home birth. While thrashing around in the birthing pool and trying to get J-Lo to watch her deliver her baby, one mum ensures this film could happily wander into the horror section!

The shocking

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

A newborn baby is actually an old man…need we say more? This is past the realms of weird births and into the truly alien. Luckily he grows up to be Brad Pitt, so there is a silver lining. But it’s hard to get over that image of an old-man-come-baby. Perhaps don’t watch this one while you’re eating your tea!

The pathetic

The Women

The Women, which doesn’t have a single man in the whole film, sounds like a fantastic celebration of all things female. It’s not. Edie Cohen (Debra Messing) goes into labour, to which Mary Haines (Meg Ryan) responds by smearing her with lip gloss and commenting on her toe nail polish…while she’s trying to give birth! To make it worse, Edie chooses to have her least maternal friend, Alex Fisher (Jada Pinkett Smith), as her birthing partner, who spends the event cowering against the wall. To cap it all off, the women spend the entire birth discussing Mary’s love life. And Mary spends a lot of the time on her mobile phone. The only saving grace for this scene is that Edie’s screams are truly Oscar worthy.

The pathetic

Father of the Bride Part II

Mum Nina (Diane Keaton) and daughter Annie (Kimberly Williams-Paisley) find out they’re pregnant at the same time, go into labour on the same day, in the same hospital, in neighbouring theatre rooms and end up giving birth to a boy and girl respectively. While we know there have been far bigger coincidences in real life, this is firmly on the side of Hollywood style smushy overkill.

The pathetic

Junior

It’s not hard to spot the unrealistic portrayal of birth in a movie about a man being pregnant. But, it’s not particularly the fact that Arnold Schwarzenegger gives birth that makes this a bit of a naff portrayal of labour, rather it’s the pantomime portrayal of what a woman experiences during pregnancy that gets our goat. Cue a lot of over-egged stereotypes and cheesy one-liners as well as the shocking realisation that the baby girl could end up looking like Arnie…

The pathetic

Baby Mama

As with a lot of films involving women going through the physical pain of labour, the midwife thinks he’s a comedian. Which is clearly what we’d all love during this difficult time…not! Add in the typical fainting of the unsuspecting birthing partner (Tina Fey) and you’ve pretty much got a paint-by-numbers movie labour scene. Yawn.

The pathetic

Star Wars III – Revenge Of The Sith

Star Wars III is set in space so a regular birth would be out of place. As such, the fact that a robot delivers Padme’s (Natalie Portman) twins and the use of a bizarre green contraption over half of her body is easy understood. It’s the ‘human’ parts of the scene that simply don’t make sense. For one thing, Padme is about to give birth to twins but lies down and barely a bump can be seen. Plus, she lays there looking like she’s ready for a spa treament, not labour. On top of this, Padme puffs for around two seconds, has one baby, puffs for a couple more and has another. Simple as that, eh?

The pathetic

Ace Ventura 2

Hands down this birth scene wins the award for the most hilarious, unrealistic labour crammed into just seconds worth of film. A pregnant woman, who doesn’t appear to give the slightest suggestion she’s in labour is suddenly thrust onto a table by Ace Ventura (Jim Carrey), has her stomach pumped like she’s gone into cardiac arrest and out flies the baby – umbilical cord and all. Phew!