Some hospitals in the United States are restricting the use of cameras in the delivery room because of safety and privacy concerns. The move has frustrated patients who say the policy infringes on their rights to record one of the most unique events in life. The issue also presents itself in the form of medical malpractice. Some argue that cameras in the delivery room create greater transparency and others argue cameras can distort a stressful situation into looking like one where a medical mistake was committed.

The improved technology of cameras on cell phones has created a new ease in capturing the moment of birth. When combined with social media tools, a family's new birth can easily be shared with other family members and the rest of the world. While hospitals are not new to cameras in the delivery room, some believe the use of cameras in the delivery room is starting to get in the way of a safe birth and also threatens the privacy rights of hospital workers who may not want to be filmed and distributed to the world online.

Some also believe that modern cameras along with digital editing have the ability to misrepresent a stressful delivery room environment and turn it into an emergency scene where improper action occurred. Of course the worry of obstetricians is that a video could unfairly influence a jury. Some obstetricians say that cameras also affect their ability to practice medicine by making their decision-making in the delivery room less resolute. One obstetrician who teaches at Harvard Medical School says, "I want to be 100 percent focused on medical care, and in this litigious atmosphere . . . it makes physicians gunshy."

Not all hospitals and obstetricians make the same argument. One obstetrician at a hospital in San Francisco says the contemporary way to address cameras in the delivery room is not to ban them but to practice having them in the delivery room. The obstetrician encourages doctors and staff to record mock deliveries in order to become more comfortable with the recording of their every move and to learn how to handle unexpected situations on camera.

Source: The New York Times, "Cameras, and rules against them, stir passions in delivery rooms," Katherine Q. Seelye, 2/2/11