There are quite a few charity ads that try to put the emergency of a situation in your face in order to make the urgency of giving money real to you. I'm sure you've seen the ads featuring poor children with no shoes and flies all over them or the ones with animals who are in such a state you want to burst into tears just looking at the images. Honesty, I don't like those ads, they make me feel manipulated. The strange thing is that I just watched what is probably the most graphic charity ad that is shocking, but did not make me feel manipulated at all. This ad is by Save the Children UK and uses footage of an actual live birth, no fancy staging, nothing, just a real woman giving birth to a real baby. It is intense because you have no idea if that baby will live or not; it is a matter of life and death.
Read more ¿Qué más?: WATCH: The most INSANE birth video you'll see in your life (WARNING: VERY GRAPHIC)
The mother is in a dark room, doing the difficult job of bringing a baby into the world with the help of a midwife. Once the baby is delivered, it's not the baby who cries, instead you see the mother turn on her side and quietly sob. You get to see the beautiful child and you wait and wait for the baby to cry because aren't babies supposed to cry? Across the screen appear the words, "For a million newborns ever year, their first day is also their last."
You think, please don't let that baby die, I do not want to see that baby die, and luckily you don't see that baby die. You see that baby cry because the midwife knew how to help unblock that baby's airwaves. The baby lives! And that's why I like the ad because it is real, it is shocking, but it is also uplifting and shows me the benefits of giving, it doesn't leave me in a state of despair and it also presents everyone in the situation with dignity.
Check it out for yourself and let me know what you think. Be warned that it shows the nitty gritty of an actual birth, you may not want to watch it while you are eating your pan dulce and it may not be something you are ready to let your kids see.
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Image via SaveTheChildrenUK/YouTube*
