A father has been ridiculed online after a video of him fainting while watching his wife give birth went viral. It all got too much for Maicon Pedroso in the delivery room of a hospital in Criciúma, Brazil, where he watched doctors perform a C-section on his wife, Marianne Felippe.
A birth photographer was also present and captured the full charade, to the great amusement of social media users. More than 20 million have watched the footage of Mr Pedroso crumpling into the arms of a midwife, and many were quick to point out the irony.
One viewer joked: 'Women don't realise how tough it can be for the father. Stay strong, warrior!' Another quipped: 'The baby's birth - and the father's rebirth.' 'Stealing the spotlight,' one viewer jokingly commented. Another viewer added: 'Imagine having seven layers of skin cut away and your husband saying in the background, "But I had it worse because I fainted."'
One woman wrote: 'He faints watching, imagine us feeling the pain.' Another said: 'If I was the nurse, I wouldn't be able to stop laughing.' It was also suggested Mr Pedroso might have been better avoiding the delivery room altogether, with someone writing: 'I don't mean to sound cruel, but as my grandmother said, the one who doesn't get in the way is the one who helps the most.'
Somebody joked that fainting was the father's reaction to 'seeing all that he would have to help with'. Another jibed: 'The body was present, but the soul's whereabouts are unknown.'
The viral clip opens with Mr Pedroso sitting on a chair at his wife's bedside and gripping her hand. At precisely the moment the baby is lifted from his wife's and put onto her chest, he begins to fall limp. A medic in scrubs grabs him under the armpits and guides him onto the floor, where he falls backwards into her lap, completely unconscious. With a smile on her face, she quickly fans him with her hands in an attempt to bring him round, while a colleague holds Mr Pedroso's legs in the air.
The video pans to the surgeons attending to Mr Pedroso's wife, who beam and give a thumbs up to the camera. Maicon later told local media: 'I don't remember anything at all from the moment the baby was born.' The couple first called the hospital in the early hours of the morning of April 18 after Mariane's water broke, and the C-section procedure went otherwise smoothly.
Birth photographers Patricia Vogel and Viviane Borges, who were said to be surprised by the father's reaction in the delivery room, later recalled: 'When we arrived, they were a bit anxious, but everything was going as expected. It was all happening in a light, calm way, with the medical team feeling very confident and the parents too. Then, at 8.24am, at the exact moment the baby was born, the father fainted.'
According to the pair, Maicon quickly recovered and was able to be with his daughter following the C-section. The couple already have an older daughter whose birth occurred without any complications. Mr Pedroso fainting was said to have taken the entire medical team present by surprise. The photographers told local media: 'We've been exclusively dedicated to birth photography for five years. We've documented more than 1,500 births, and this is definitely a scene we've seen happen a few times before.' Thankfully, the mother, father, and their newborn daughter are all now doing well.
