Basic Trope: A stillbirth, Played for Drama.
- Straight: Alice gives birth to a stillborn baby, making her and her husband Bob very sad.
- Exaggerated: All of Alice and Bob's kids have been stillborn.
- Downplayed:
- Justified:
- Alice is a teenager.
- Alice is middle-aged.
- Alice has fertility issues.
- The baby was one of triplets.
- Alice drank.
- Alice was under extreme stress.
- Alice had no prenatal care.
- Inverted: Alice gives birth to a live baby, but this causes drama because she and Bob can't afford to have kids.
- Subverted:
- Alice gives birth to a baby boy but he's unconscious and not breathing. She bursts into tears, fearing that he must be stillborn, but after the doctor gives him CPR, he comes around, and Alice and Bob name him Chris.
- Alice gives birth, but can't hear any crying. She fears that her baby is stillborn, but the doctor assures her that he's breathing, but just isn't crying. Alice then welcomes little Chris into the world.
- Alice was pregnant, but then later is seen with no baby and sad... because baby Chris is with Bob and he'd caught his first cold and so she was feeling sorry for him.
- Double Subverted: The doctor thinks Chris is breathing, but he's wrong.
- Parodied:
- Zigzagged: Alice has a hard pregnancy, and there's a lot of drama based on whether or not Chris will die in utero, then once he's born, he's not crying, and there's uncertainty as to whether he's dead, not breathing but able to be revived, or alive and breathing but simply not crying.
- Averted:
- Alice never gets pregnant.
- Chris is born without a hitch.
- Enforced: "Alice's actress is pregnant, and hiding it would look too conspicuous, yet Status Quo Is God... let's just have him be stillborn; this is a drama show after all."
- Lampshaded: "Why did he have to die before he was even born?! It's not fair!"
- Invoked: Evulz exposes Alice to secondhand smoke in hopes that Chris will be stillborn.
- Exploited:
- Defied: Bob wears a condom because he doesn't want his wife to get pregnant as he can't bear the thought of being the father of a stillborn baby.
- Discussed: "What if the baby is stillborn or something?!"
- Conversed: "I swear to God, if that baby is stillborn, I'm gonna stop watching this show! Death of adult characters I can handle, but not babies!"
- Implied: Alice appeared to be pregnant, but is later seen sad and with no baby.
- Deconstructed:
- Reconstructed:
- Played for Laughs:
- Played for Drama:
- Played for Horror: Chris is stillborn, but then comes back as a ghost.
Back to Tragic Stillbirth.
