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{{trope}}
[[File:lauren.jpg|link=The Nanny|
Nowadays, when an actress gets pregnant, this event is usually written into the show as the character getting pregnant. However, sometimes the writers decide not to include the pregnancy, perhaps because it can't be written in convincingly, it doesn't fit with the storyline, or perhaps it's just that [[Status Quo Is God]]. In this case, they commonly resort to various (ineffective) tricks to avoid the actress' bump being noticed, such as
▲Nowadays, when an actress gets pregnant, this event is usually written into the show as the character getting pregnant. However, sometimes the writers decide not to include the pregnancy, perhaps because it can't be written in convincingly, it doesn't fit with the storyline, or perhaps it's just that [[Status Quo Is God]]. In this case, they commonly resort to various (ineffective) tricks to avoid the actress' bump being noticed, such as
* The actress wears lots of loose, baggy clothes.
* The sudden, unprecedented wearing of heavy overcoats etc. which are ''much'' too big for her, with absolutely no
* She carries [[Scenery Censor|lots of bags in front of her belly]]
* She sits down a lot; in the late stages of pregnancy, this often entails some sort of blanket over herself to hide the bump. Such "supine shots" are filmed for prolonged periods, with no direct views of her ''ever'' actively getting up or sitting down.
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* The camera shoots her from far away if they need full body shots.
* She suddenly wears ''black.'' Lots and lots of black... without a funeral (or [[The Matrix|Matrix]]) in sight (for clarification - black helps hide the shadow that the actress' suddenly much larger stomach casts, as well as its shape).
* The excessive use of body-doubles for all revealing body-shots with the face conspicuously
* Worst of all, is the attempt of wearing high heels etc. to make her look more height-weight proportionate; this succeeds only in making her appear even more like "the elephant in the room" by towering over all else around her with her increased size. Even worse, when she walks, she typically becomes a lumbering hulk, lurching and teetering around on the heels like Frankenstein's Monster due to her increased height and decreased balance.
Alternatively, the character might just be written to put on a lot of weight, due to a sudden "eating binge" or whatever (see "Frasier" below). Note that this trope does not include cases where the actress' pregnancy is written into the show - that's [[Reality Subtext]].
----
{{examples}}
== Film ==
* ''The Big Steal'' took extra long to film due to Robert Mitchum's stint in jail for marijuana possession in the middle of production. His pregnant co-star, Jane Greer, is visibly thicker in the waist in the last scenes shot while Mitchum himself is thinner due to life on a prison farm.
* In the original British version of ''[[Death
* In ''[[Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (
** Also, Bonham Carter was pregnant during the filming of ''[[Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (
* Shirley Jones was discovered to be pregnant during the filming of the 1962 movie ''The Music Man''; her costumes were designed to hide that fact. In an interview, it is pointed out that if you look very closely during certain scenes, you can see the bump.
* In the 1995 version of ''[[Pride and Prejudice]]'', Susannah Harker (who played Jane Bingley) was pregnant with her first child during filming. However, the cut of the dresses and the period fashions made this much easier to obscure than in many other productions, not to mention the fact that a good portions of the scenes she's in involve her sitting down anyway.
* [[Claudia Black]] was very obviously pregnant by the time filming began on the movie ''[[Stargate: Continuum]]'', and there was no way to convincingly hide it even in the opening scene, where she's carrying a big sci-fi gun and wearing a loose camouflage fatigue jacket. Similarly to her role in ''[[Stargate SG-1|SG-1]]'' Season 9, she vanished (literally, due to {{spoiler|Ba'al's temporal manipulations}}, then showed up again {{spoiler|in the altered time line}} as the System Lord Qetesh, wearing a too-large dress and usually having the direct line of sight to her stomach blocked by different objects or shooting angles.
* Veronica Lake was pregnant at the start of the filming of ''Sullivan's Travels'', but her character wasn't. Fortunately, as she was playing a hobo, she could convincingly wear loose, baggy clothes. The rest of the time, the greatest costume designer in Hollywood was hard at work making her look completely innocuous.
* ''The Swinging Cheerleaders'' a 70s exploitation comedy, averted this. Cheryl "Rainbeaux" Smith neglected to tell anybody involved with the production that she was five months pregnant. Never mind that her part called for several topless scenes, and that her character was a virgin.
* [[
* Averted in ''[[Fido]]''. Carrie-Anne Moss's real life pregnancy was written into the film, where her character mentions being pregnant, and the husband commenting that he can't afford to pay for another funeral.
* In ''[[Legally Blonde]] 2'', they filmed an introductory scene some time after the main shooting was completed. At that point Reese Witherspoon was obviously pregnant, so the scene consists of women sitting and talking, shot only from the chest up. It's pretty awkward and obvious.
* About midway through the film production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's ''[[
* Catherine Zeta-Jones during ''[[Chicago]]'', that's why she never shows her stomach.
* Filipino actress Sharon Cuneta was pregnant with her daughter KC Concepcion when she was filming ''[[Bituwing Walang Ningning]]'' (lit. 'Star Without a Sparkle'). It became apparent that Sharon's baby bump was starting to grow, and as such, the film crew had to either film her from the chest up or use various objects such as bookshelves and lampshades in order to conceal Sharon's growing womb.
== Literature ==
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== Live Action TV ==
* The writers of ''[[All My Children]]'' decided not to write in Sydney Penny's pregnancy, instead using only tight shots of Penny's face. This resulted in a very funny moment for her and Justin Bruening, when their two characters were arguing over whether to have a baby, while Penny was 8-1/2 months pregnant.
* Subverted, or played with in ''[[
* Jennie Garth (Kelly Taylor) in ''[[Beverly Hills, 90210]]''.
* Tamsin Greig in ''[[Black Books]]'', who is hidden not just by the normal techniques, including lots of long scarves, but also because it looks like she's constantly smoking and drinking though the entire series.
* Holly Marie Combs in ''[[
* During the third season of ''[[
* An actress on ''[[Coronation Street]]'' playing a post-op transsexual became pregnant; she started by sitting down a lot, and later went on holiday to keep things from getting too obvious.
* When Phylicia Rashad of ''[[The Cosby Show]]'' got pregnant, she had to stand/sit with various household objects in front of her belly. One scene had her sitting down behind a gigantic teddy bear, strange as that may sound. Some episodes excluded Clair entirely, but she was mentioned to be working late or out of town.
** They also cut a hole out in Cliff/Clair's bed so that when they were in it, Rashad's stomach wasn't elevated.
* When AJ Cook got pregnant toward the end of the third season of ''[[
* When ''[[CSI: NY]]'' actress [[Anna Belknap]], who plays Lindsay Monroe, became pregnant, they used the close-up method with varying success.
** The second time they just wrote it into the storyline, thankfully.
* ''[[Dallas]]''' Victoria Principal was only shown either conspicuously absent, or sitting down with a table conveniently in front of her for much of the season, while she was filmed from the chest up.
* ''[[Desperate Housewives]]'' got very creative with this, using everything from giant gingerbread castles to Mrs. McClusky's head to hide Marcia Cross' pregnancy. But when the plot really could not get away with this, they just called in a stunt double. One episode required Bree to climb a ladder, hiding the other actress's face.
** And yet, Bree's first plotline upon Marcia's return was FAKING a pregnancy.
* This is why Zoe, in the ''[[
* Near the middle of Season 5 of ''[[The Drew Carey Show]]'', Christa Miller suddenly started sitting/lying down a lot while covered up, or wearing baggy and/or black clothing that she never wore previously. Her pregnancy couldn't be written into the script because her character was just starting her romance with Drew. However, she did show up pregnant as a "gag" in Episode 19, "What's Wrong with this Episode III" since the character wasn't ''supposed'' to be pregnant. (Ryan Stiles also showed up pregnant as "Lewis--" except that Christa Miller's wasn't simply a basketball under her shirt, as her widened overall girth showed even from behind).
* Patricia Heaton spent some seasons of ''[[
* Jane Leeves got pregnant late in ''[[
* In the last season of ''[[
** Also, Ross's second [[Romantic False Lead]], Emily, only showed up during phone calls, and even then it was only her head. Why? Her actress had become pregnant.
* ''[[General Hospital]]'' used this where actress Jacklyn Zeman got pregnant. It couldn't be written in because her character Bobbie had had a hysterectomy.
* Kelly Rutherford was pregnant during the second season of ''[[Gossip Girl]]''. At first they succeeded pretty well in hiding it, but towards the end they got really sloppy.
* Chyler Leigh's pregnancy in season five of ''[[Grey's Anatomy
* Both [[Alyson Hannigan]] and Cobie Smulders were pregnant in the fourth season of ''[[
** Groundwork for a pregnancy storyline was even put in motion that would have provided an easy way around the whole issue. A perfect plan {{spoiler|that was abandoned entirely, as Lily and Marshall decide later in the same episode to wait to have kids}}, and to top it off, a later episode features Lily in a hot-dog eating competition. The result? A [[Balloon Belly|visibly expanded stomach]]. (This gag was also used on ''[[
** However, when Alyson got pregnant again in season seven, her character was already pregnant, so no need to hide it.
* Barbara Eden in the first episodes of ''[[I
* One of [[Lucille Ball]]'s pregnancies was hidden during the very early episodes (possibly just the pilot?) of ''[[I Love Lucy]]'' .
** Averted with her second pregnancy: the [[Moral Guardians]] wanted her to do this, as pregnancy was a taboo subject in media at the time, but she refused, and the episode where Lucy gives birth wound up setting a new Nielson record. Since the word 'pregnant' couldn't be used on TV, the show coined (or at least popularized) the term 'expecting'.
* ''[[It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
** However; zig-zagged because a couple of episodes had used the classic tricks of shooting her at an angle, putting something in front of her, or only having her visible from the chest up in certain shots. You can especially see this in the swimming pool episode.
* When ''[[JAG]]'' actress [[Catherine Bell]] became pregnant, Mac was appointed as a judge, to allow her to sit behind a big judge desk. (Military judges don't wear robes.)
* ''[[Kate And Allie]]'' put Kate in a hospital bed with a foot injury. A later episode was told largely in flashback, during the time when Kate was pregnant with her daughter Emma.
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* When Mariska Hargitay of ''[[Law and Order Special Victims Unit]]'' got pregnant, Olivia Benson held large folders in front of her, wore thick, heavy winter coats, and eventually temporarily left town on an undercover assignment for the FBI. At one point she held a coat in front of her while wearing a thick jacket. The overcoat in question wouldn't have been able to fit over the jacket she was wearing.
* ''The Lawrence Welk Show'' did this whenever a female member of the cast became pregnant, which was quite often.
* When Gina Bellman of ''[[
* In the second season of ''[[Life]]'', Sarah Shahi's pregnancy was utilized very well to further the story arc: Dani Reese goes off to interview for a job in the FBI, only to be used as a pawn by people in the conspiracy. This allows for the occasional chest-up shot of her while the rest of the cast is solving the mystery of the week.
* Katey Segal became pregnant twice during the run of ''[[Married...
* When [[Traylor Howard]] got pregnant during the fourth season of ''[[
* Completely averted with Kari Byron of ''[[
{{quote|
* Parodied on ''[[30 Rock
** This may have been lampshade hanging for Tina Fey's own pregnancy which was becoming visible at that time.
* ''[[The Nanny]]'' provides the page image of Lauren Lane, who played C.C Babcock.(Out of character as she's portrayed as being hopeless at attracting men). They even did some [[Lampshade Hanging]] with this one by having her carry a poster with "Baby" on it in front of her, and by making references to the ''[[
** They also hid both of Rachel Chagall's pregnancies. Her character Val was even more hopeless at attracting men, so they were forced to hide them as well. Hers was especially noticeable in the final season because they were trying to hide her (real) pregnancy while she was standing beside Fran Drescher in the middle of a (fake) pregnancy.
* ''[[
* In ''[[
* In the second half of the fourth season of ''[[The Office]]'', [[Angela Martin]] was strictly confined to her workspace behind a chest height wall due to her pregnancy.
* When [[Amy Poehler]] became pregnant for the second time during ''[[
* Olivia Colman in Series 4 of ''[[Peep Show]]'' was carefully filmed to avoid revealing that she was pregnant.
** Averted, however, in the second series of ''[[That Mitchell and Webb Look]]'', filmed around the same time, in which she appears heavily pregnant throughout. Kind of helps that it's a sketch show, however.
* This happened to ''[[
* A curious aversion in ''Property Ladder''; In the British version Sarah Beeny practically became a walking continuity error due to her pregnancy. Since the nature of the show involves following the progress people are making in renovating homes over an extended period of time, the inserted segments involving Beeny would frequently shift between not-pregnant and heavily pregnant over several episodes (or, in certain extreme cases, the ''same'' episode) depending on when they were filmed, with little apparent attempt on the part of the producers to hide or cover this up. Then again, it's real life and as noted occurs over an extended period of time, so they probably weren't ''that'' bothered about it.
* In ''[[Rizzoli and Isles]]'', Sasha Alexander's second pregnancy wasn't written in. The character wore very tight clothing, so it was obvious to the viewers she was pregnant towards the end of the first season.
* ''[[Roseanne]]'' ''tried'' to do this with Laurie Metcalf's pregnancy. They started with loose clothing that got larger and larger and then resorted to putting things in front of her(the most memorable moment being when Jackie sits in the bathtub with a heavy quilt over her when she, Dan and Roseanne get high on twenty year old pot). However, Metcalf ended up with one of the biggest baby bumps ever and they were forced to write in a one night stand conception so they didn't have to remove her from the rest of the season.
* Billie Piper was pregnant during the filming of the second series of ''[[The Secret Diary Of A Call Girl]]''. Obviously a pregnancy couldn't be written in, so a body double was used for nude scenes and Belle began wearing baggy, unflattering dresses. It becomes quite intrusive when you know about it, as sex scenes involve tight close-ups on her face, then shots of her body from the shoulders down.
* Julia Louis-Dreyfus became pregnant twice during the course of the run of ''[[
* In ''[[Sex and
* In the series finale of ''[[Six Feet Under]]'', Brenda has just given birth to Willa, but [[Rachel Griffiths]] was still pregnant. She carried a very large purse and wore baggy clothes.
* Jessica Hynes in ''[[Spaced]]''. Daisy Steiner's tomboyish outfits helped to conceal her pregnancy, along with [[Compliment Backfire|cruel comments]] from Daisy's "friend" [[Vitriolic Best Buds|Twist]].
* At the beginning of season nine of ''[[
* When [[Gates McFadden]] (Dr. Crusher) got pregnant in real life during ''[[Star Trek:
**
* ''[[Star Trek
* Likewise, Roxanne Dawson (Lt. Torres) of ''[[Star Trek
** The large coat actually tipped off the savvy viewer that she was pregnant as the coat was modelled after the style of top worn by pregnant women in the US Army. Thus it was pretty obvious when and for how long she was pregnant.
* [[Cynthia Watros]] was pregnant with twins during the second season if ''[[
* Roma Downey's pregnancy couldn't be written into ''[[Touched By an Angel]]'' for obvious reasons. They went the standard baggy clothes, chest and up shots and lots of hiding behind plants/chairs/Andrew.
* In ''[[Two and A Half Men]]'', one of Charlie's former-girlfriends is shown as supposedly non-pregnant, despite that she's obviously at 8 months, draped utterly non-convincingly in a shawl which conceals
* ''[[Ugly Betty]]'''s Alexis Meade (played by Rebecca Romijn) was written out for the same reason as the ''[[Coronation Street]]'' example above.
* In ''[[
** [[Word of God]] confirms that the [[Myth Arc]] was never intended, despite hints of alien conspiracies early in the series. It also confirms that Anderson's pregnancy was what jump-started the whole thing, since they had to explain away her absence as well as give development to then-minor characters like Director Skinner and the Cigarette Smoking Man, who was literally "an extra leaning on a shelf."
* Rommie's body being destroyed and the [[Suspiciously Similar Substitute]] of Doyle as [[Badass]] [[Robot Girl]] during season 5 of ''[[Andromeda]]'' was due to Doig's pregnancy. During her pregnancy, she only appeared in chest up shots or as a disembodied head
* Successful example on ''[[The Big Comfy Couch]]''. [[Alyson Court]] was pregnant during her last season as Loonette, but the big clown costume hid it well.
* ''[[Merlin (TV series)|Merlin]]'' did it with Emilia Fox, but not extremely well in the opinion of some fans.
* Subverted in the famous Brady episode of ''[[Day By Day]]'' where Maureen
* Emily Procter on ''[[CSI: Miami]]''.
* Used on ''[[Due South]]'' in the third season, with the actress who played Frannie Vecchio.
* Used for the latter half of season 6 of ''[[
* Old-fangled squeamishness over showing pregnant women on TV almost kept Marianne Faithfull from being featured on the 1965 special ''[[The Beatles (
* The actress who plays Kristen in ''[[Wilfred]]'' was pretty darn preggers throughout season 1.
== Music Videos ==
* In [[Eurythmics
* [[
* Averted by T-Boz from [[TLC (
* In [[
* In [[
* [[Within Temptation]] has Sharon. The video for "Sinéad," where Sharon wears a heavy coat and is only shown from the chest up.
* Averted in "Someday" by [[Britney Spears]] which is basically a music video to celebrate her pregnancy.
* [[Pat Benatar]]'s video for "We Belong" tried to hide her pregnancy at the time with a large, drapey jacket.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Real Life Writes the Plot]]
[[Category:Pregnancy Tropes]]
[[Category:
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