Basic Trope: A pregnant woman enters labour while she's stuck in an elevator, usually meaning that anyone else present is forced to help her give birth.
- Straight: Alice, who is heavily pregnant, and Bob are in an elevator when it breaks down. While they're waiting for it to restart, Alice's water breaks and she begins to give birth, meaning Bob must deliver the baby.
- Exaggerated: Alice, Bob, Catherine, Danielle, Erin and Florence are all in an elevator that has broken down. All the women are heavily pregnant with quintuplets, and all of them enter labour a few seconds after elevator breaks down.Alice: How the hell did Becky Belding make this look so easy?!
- Downplayed: Since labor takes a while, the elevator is fixed well before it is too late to move Alice. It still provides drama, however.
- Justified:
- It is almost or on Alice's due date, meaning that she is likely to enter labour at any moment.
- Alice is already in labour, and this is just one more unfortunate complication.
- They were on their way to the delivery room, the elevator was the last leg of the journey.
- The elevator malfunctioned, and the stress of the situation sent Alice into premature labor.
- Inverted:
- Alice and Bob have sex in a broken elevator while they're waiting for it to be fixed, during which Alice conceives.
- Charlie dies inside a broken elevator.
- Subverted:
- Bob is riding an elevator when Alice, a heavily pregnant woman, gets on. Bob immediately starts to worry that the elevator is going to break down and Alice is going to enter labour... then the elevator breaks down. Bob begins to panic that Alice is about to give birth. The elevator is fixed, and Alice gets off without any complications.
- Doubly Subverted: The next day, Bob and Alice get on the same elevator again. This time, it breaks down. And Alice's water breaks...
- Parodied:
- Bob begins to scream and panic like a headless chicken, while Alice calmly and patiently sits down with her back to the wall and begins her breathing exercises.
- Alice gives birth on an escalator.
- Break Glass In Case of Hysterical Woman Giving Birth
- Zig Zagged: The elevator shudders, but it makes it to the right floor. Relieved, the doctor marches out of the elevator, but the second he sets foot outside it finally breaks, making Alice and the inexperienced nurses stuck between floors with the doctor shouting instructions at them.
- Averted:
- The elevator doesn't break down.
- Alice doesn't go into labor.
- Enforced: "We want this birth scene to be really dramatic!"
- Lampshaded: "Of all the elevators in this building, I have to get in the dud one with the lady who's about to drop!"
- Invoked:
- The 'pregnant woman giving birth in an elevator' scenario is a test that Bob is subjected to in order to see how he copes in a crisis situation.
- The baby Alice is carrying is rumoured to be The Chosen One and powerful forces opposed to this have sealed Alice in an enclosed space and supernaturally induced labour in hopes of killing both mother and child.
- Exploited: People put video cameras in elevators to capture dramatic elevator births to put on YouTube
- Defied: Alice is superstitious and paranoid, and has made a point of avoiding elevators and enclosed spaces during her pregnancy.
- Discussed: "One of my rules for a happy and quiet life; if I see a pregnant lady get on an elevator, I take the stairs."
- Conversed: "Oh look, a pregnant woman on an elevator. Bet you anything you like she will give birth in it"
- Deconstructed: The fact that Alice is in bad enough shape before or during the birth to require immediate medical attention in a short timeframe before the elevator can be fixed has poor implications for the outcome of the situation. Instant Birth: Just Add Labor! only makes it worse. The labor is short, explosively painful, and results in a hemorrhage or eclampsia which nearly kills Alice.
- Reconstructed:
- The hospital staff adopt stricter policies about letting pregnant women in the elevators. The maternity ward and ultrasound is moved to the first floor.
- Alice is not in bad shape when she is in labour.
- Implied: Alice is seen pregnant getting on an elevator. In the next scene she's had her baby but it's unknown whether the baby was born while in the elevator or after she got out.
- Played For Drama: Alice needs urgent medical attention.
- Played For Laughs: A Cloud Cuckoo Lander (or several) are stuck needing to help deliver Alice's baby in an elevator.
Back to Born in an Elevator
