Instant Birth, Just Add Water/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: Amniotic sac breaks; birth happens instantly.

  • Played Straight: Alice's water breaks, and the baby arrives shortly thereafter
  • Exaggerated: Alice's water breaks, and the baby just falls right out.
  • Justified: The water breaking is usually a sign that birth will happen soon.
    • This is not Alice's first child; women who have birthed more than one child generally give birth quicker than women who are birthing their first child.
  • Inverted: Alice's water breaks, but she's not even ready to give birth, or the labor is very slow.
  • Subverted: Alice's water breaks, but she has enough time to get to the hospital.
  • Double Subverted: But her contractions keep getting stronger and stronger along the way, and she barely makes it to the delivery room.
  • Deconstructed:
  • Reconstructed:
  • Parodied: See "Exaggerated"
  • Zig Zagged: Some women give birth right when their water breaks, other times not for some time after.
  • Averted: Alice's water breaks, but the baby does not arrive right then and there.
    • Alice's water does not break
  • Invoked:
  • Exploited: Alice's labor is failing to progress and/or she's overdue, so the midwife or obstetrician breaks the membranes artificially to speed things up.
  • Defied:
  • Enforced: Most Writers Are Male, Did Not Do the Research
  • Discussed: "So, the instant the water breaks, the baby is born?"
  • Conversed: "Yes and no. It's a good sign of progress, but the baby may actually arrive later."
  • Played For Laughs: Alice's water breaks at a bad time.
  • Played For Drama: The quick birth causes problems for Alice.

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