No Candid Camera

From a Newsweek/MSNBC article:

Swedish Covenant Hospital in Chicago, like a growing number of the 2,778 U.S. hospitals with delivery rooms, is turning down patients' requests to videotape births. The official reason: privacy and safety concerns. But some say the real reason is that hospitals are afraid the tapes will be used against them in malpractice suits. Doctors say the no-movie-camera policies benefit patients. Tripods can fall into the "sterile field," says Laura Riley, director of labor and delivery at Harvard's Massachusetts General Hospital, adding that many doctors find filmmaking distracting and feel uncomfortable being taped. Privacy laws favor doctors' rights to be camera shy. Health-care lawyer Miles Zaremski, who calls taping "an improper intrusion," says there's no legal right to tape births. Besides, many doctors believe that movie cameras defeat the purpose of having Dad in the delivery room in the first place. "The support person is there to support the mother through the birth," Riley says, "not to be behind the camera."