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Frida Mom, a company focused on providing women convenient hygiene products for the days after giving birth, is attempting to teach us as a society that women should not have to go through their postpartum days alone.
But when a major channel like ABC, accompanied by the widely-watched Oscars ceremony, rejects a commercial highlighting some of the struggles of postpartum life, it communicates a very different message.
In the rejected commercial, Frida Mom argues for improved conditions for the postpartum mother, through the use of more convenient care products.
At the beginning of the video, we hear a newborn baby crying in their bassinet, and then we see the baby's mother turn on her bedside light at nearly 3:00 AM. She quickly comforts the baby before making her slow, painful walk to the bathroom, where she uses the toilet, cleans herself, and applies new hygiene products.
Frida Mom's argument at the end of the original commercial is for hygiene products made to ease the struggle and the nightly routine a mother must complete in order to take care of herself, as well as her newborn child.
Frida Mom posted the video to YouTube, and you can watch it here:
Upon submitting the video for review to ABC, the company replied with a simple form rejection, stating the commercial included one or more of the types of content not approved to appear on the channel.
The emailed statement from ABC read:
"[Per the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences guidelines, commercials including] political candidates/positions, religious or faith-based messages/positions, guns, gun shows, ammunition, feminine hygiene products, adult diapers, condoms, or hemorrhoid remedies [are prohibited]."
Frida Mom posted the video to YouTube and Instagram, and replied:
"It's just a new mom, home with her baby and her new body for the first time."
"Yet it was rejected. And we wonder why new moms feel unprepared. So spray it forward and share this video with every new mom. She deserves to be prepared."
Frida Mom also posted again on Instagram yesterday, pointing out the strange nature of prohibiting information about feminine hygiene in the same way we would ammunition and other more politically-charged topics.
Mothers everywhere have chimed in on the two posts from Frida Mom, expressing their thanks for creating such a vulnerable video and challenging the loneliness and unnecessary difficulties involved, particularly in early postpartum motherhood.
Frida Mom as a feminist-based company continues to do the important work of normalizing feminine, pregnancy, and postpartum hygiene, among the other hardships of feminine self-care.
Hopefully the sweep of positive reactions to the video will give ABC and other channel providers pause as they consider in the future what is prohibited, and what should be deemed necessary, even when it's hard to talk about.