The Oscars didn’t want to air a postpartum commercial during their awards show on Sunday, and now the rejected company behind the ad is making sure everyone knows the reason why.
As Today reported, Frida Mom has revealed that their ad which gives a realistic look at life after delivery was rejected from airing on TV after it was deemed “too graphic” for viewers.
RELATED STORIES
The Frida Mom company specializes in postpartum products aimed at both mom and baby, and their latest ad was all about the raw side of motherhood.
The 60-second-long spot opens with an exhausted new mom getting out of bed to the sound of her baby crying
As she makes her way to the bathroom, we see this new mom is sporting postpartum underwear.
In case you’ve never experienced childbirth and have therefor never sported a pair of these stylish, mesh panties, postpartum underwear are meant to help new moms deal with postpartum bleeding, which can last up to six weeks after delivery.
After reaching the bathroom, the mom begins cleaning herself, which includes using a vaginal cleansing bottle while hovering over the toilet.
Also known as perineum “peri” bottles , these little squirt bottles allow you clean your under-area easily and gently after the delivery of a baby.
These are especially important to use if you’ve experienced any tearing during childbirth and now have stitches.
Once she’s all clean, the mom switches out her personal hygiene products.
It’s important to note that this all happens while her baby is still crying in another room. So even once this mom is done in the bathroom, she still has to go attend to her fitful newborn.
At the end of the commercial, we see the tagline, “Postpartum recovery doesn’t have to be this hard,” as Frida Mom advertises several of its own products.
After the advertisement was rejected, Friday Mom shared it on YouTube where they revealed why it was rejected from airing during the Oscars.
As the video explains,
“The ad you’re about to watch was rejected by ABC & the Oscars from airing during this year’s award show. It’s not ‘violent, political’ or sexual in nature. Our ad is not ‘religious or lewd’ and does not portray ‘guns or ammunition’. ‘Feminine hygiene & hemorrhoid relief’ are also banned subjects. It’s just a new mom, home with her baby and her new body for the first time. Yet it was rejected.
The company added, “And we wonder why new moms feel unprepared.”
Frida Mom CEO Chelsea Hirschlorn said it “felt like a setback” to see postpartum recovery products likened to other sensitive topics.
“We were really surprised to hear that feminine hygiene was put in the same category as guns, ammunition, sexually suggestive nudity, religion and politics,” she told TODAY . “I was surprised, in this day and age, to see that whomever at whatever organizational level at the Academy and at ABC put in writing that they would analogize feminine hygiene to some of those other, more offensive categories of advertising.”
After the advertisement was shared on social media, users expressed their upset at the ad being banned.
“The fact that @ABCNetwork banned this ad is truly absurd,” one Twitter user wrote. “Society relies on us to bring children into the world and yet they can’t handle the truth about postpartum.”
Another added, “Too ‘graphic’ for TV…whatever. This is the most real thing I’ve seen regarding being a new mom & it’s beautiful and relevant.”
Others insisted the ad is educational about the realities of what is referred to as the “fourth trimester”.
This is what experts have dubbed the time after childbirth where a mom is still recovery from delivery, which also dealing with their newborns.
“We wonder, after experiences like these, why women remain so completely unprepared to navigate this very fragile time period,” Hirschhorn told TODAY . “It’s because there are very narrowly defined ways in which we can share information.”
h/t: TODAY
