In Hannah Shealy’s TV pilot Birth is for P*ssies, Maya (Shealy) starts her new career as a birth doula, completely unprepared for what that involves and finds herself in way over her head caring for a single mother about to give birth while her mentor is called away for another emergency. In just thirteen minutes, this warm, funny comedy fuses heart and humor into something winning that also shines an all-too-rare light on how birth actually happens, not how we usually see it in the movies.
Awards Buzz spoke with Shealy about how she worked as a birth doula and decided that she wanted to make this project:
“When I first moved to New York, I was babysitting an actor family and the mom was a modern dancer and a doula and she would talk about birth, and I was like, ‘That sounds amazing.’ I had been terrified of birth my whole life, partially because of the representations of birth in the media. Most movies sensationalize it, use it as a violent dramatic device, and so if that’s all you’ve seen of birth, then naturally it becomes something you’re scared of. Her telling me stories about birth started to really open my mind to a different reality of it, and I guess I just got really curious and wanted to find out myself. Pretty quickly on in my birth experiences, the first births that I went to, I was like, ‘This is nothing like the movies, and this is incredible!’ The depth of and the breadth and range of humanity on display from both the birth working community and the actual people giving birth and their families. Pretty quickly, I was like, ‘This would be an amazing TV show.’ So I’ve been sitting on this idea for a long time.”
Watch the video above to hear about the most typical misrepresentations she’s seen in media and what she’s hoping to do next with this show.
Birth is for P*ssies makes its world premiere in the Independent TV Pilot Competition at the 2026 SXSW Film & TV Festival.
