A Baby on the Way

Short Film (Full Length) – 1971

Made for the Plunket Society by the NFU, A Baby on the Way uses a blackboard and various experts in front of an antenatal class to provide birth education for early 70s Kiwi parents-to-be. Plunket Medical Director Neil Begg lowers his pipe to introduce the lessons, and contemporary advice for ensuring a mother’s health during pregnancy is given by doctors, nurses, and physios. The scenes involving breast massage and analgesics may have induced titters in school-aged audiences, unlike the brief-but-gory concluding birth (set to piped organ music).

We all tend to marvel at the products of scientific progress and technology. It’s refreshing to turn to a natural miracle and one which repeats itself at least 60,000 times year in New Zealand. It’s the conception of a child, his growth in the womb and his delivery. Commonplace? Yes, but it never loses its sense of wonder.
– Dr Neil Begg