The Pitt is described as one of the most medically accurate shows that’s aired in the history of television. If you’ve watched the eleventh episode of the first season, you might be wondering how they pulled off the complicated birth scene.
The Pitt stars Noah Wiley as Dr. Robby who navigates the rushes and real scenarios of the emergency room. The show has already dealt with problems like fentanyl consumption, burns, and other medical emergencies, while also addressing things that happen between healthcare workers like burnout and intrapersonal relationships.
Dr. Robby and his crew encounter a pregnant woman named Natalie (Enuka Okuma) who experiences a complicated birth. To medical drama aficionados (unless you’re a fan of ER) this might be more gruesome than meets the eye.
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Was The Pitt‘s birth scene real?
The Pitt’s birth scene was not real, but lots of effort went into creating the elaborate and meticulous scene with the help of the visual effects team. “It’s really being cognizant of the reality of the medicine, trying to stick to it, trying to present it as authentically as possible,” creator R. Scott Gemmill told Vulture. “That’s why we’re doing it this way: not to cheat it.”
A detailed birth scene is something that’s so rare on TV, and with how liberated HBO is when it comes to sex and gore, The Pit’s crew thought it would be helpful for viewers to see the real-life action of an emergency room. “It was really important that I was able to film the baby coming out and then tilt up to the mother so it’s all connected,” director Quyen Tran says. “And at the same time, how do we film it in such a way that we don’t see all the off-camera support?” Tran, who also had a traumatic birth, wanted to get it all right. “I was very invested in making this as authentic as possible, because I had lived it.”
The team hired an outside VFX team Autonomous FX to create the prosthetics and had multiple puppeteers playing out the birth by pushing out the baby out of the pregnant canal. The scene needed an orthopedic chair, a silicone vagina, and some piano wire. Natalie also delivers the placenta and experiences a hemorrhage, where the puppeteers pump lots of blood out of it. “I want to underscore the impressiveness of the prosthetic,” Wyle told the outlet. “It allowed me to not have to simulate or imagine anything that I was doing. It’s very rare in a medical show. Usually, you’re not really doing the stuff you’re doing. But this one, my hands were inside. The baby was in there. The baby’s shoulder is caught on a pubic bone. I was trying to manipulate it and rotate it around so I could get this thing clear. Everything we did was possible because of the beautiful artistry behind the prosthetic.”
“Everyone understood it wasn’t me, but it’s still a vulnerable position to be there, with people kind of gawking,” Okuma says. “I really, truly appreciated it. Even though we all know it’s make-believe! It’s just, Let’s make this actress comfortable.”
“There’s a humanizing and leveling aspect to depicting something so universal, a birth that could have been rife with complication and attendant tragedy,” says Wyle. “And there’s a miraculous save that underscores the heroism of the practitioners who do this every day.”
