Birth videos abound on social media, but audio recordings from births are less common. Hannah Widell chose to record her so-called birth roar when she gave birth to her youngest son, something she talks about in My truth on SVT.
In November 2021, entrepreneur Hannah Widell announced that she and her husband Philip Lindh had become parents of a little boy.
Widell announced the happy news by posting a photo of her newborn son on Instagram:
“Little brother is here,” she wrote. “We call him Frank.”
“An incredibly special sound”
When Widell visits My truth on SVT we get an insight into how it happened when the son was born, this in the form of a recording from the birth that is played in the episode.
Hannah, who together with her sister Amanda Schulman runs the popular The Friday podcastsays that it was her own idea to record the so-called birth cry:
“Amanda and I have together given birth to four The Friday podcast-babies during this ten-year period, so we’ve talked a lot about childbirth before. And then I asked my husband Philip to turn on the pod mic when it did [hände]to be able to remember that.”
The inspiration must have come from the many childbirth videos shared on social media. What Widell responded to was that the audio is often cut from these videos:
“I thought: we is sound,” she says. “When women give birth, it’s such an incredibly special sound because you descend into some kind of animal [tillstånd] /…/ Somewhere, it felt great to share it. Sure, giving birth is private, but at the same time it’s something completely magical and fantastic, so I felt it was clear I should share it. There is nothing that I want to hide in it.”
My truth is broadcast at 20.00 on SVT2 and on SVT Play.
