For Postpartum and Pregnancy Care, One Brand Turns to a Porn Star

The video shows Asa Akira lying on the bed, naked from the hips down, with her legs splayed open. Her hair is thrown into a messy bun. Then she reaches for some lubricant and a long, curved device.

“You might want to insert it,” she says, “but that’s not the idea.”

The device is a perineum massager, designed to help those who are pregnant gently stretch the area between the vagina and the rectum. Some studies indicate that massaging this area may help reduce the risk of severe tearing during childbirth, but it takes some dexterity to use the tool.

Ms. Akira is not a pregnant model but rather a well-known porn star. “Push down,” she says, as the camera zooms in. “You’re going to make a U-shape.”

The video was created by the mother and baby care brand Frida, which makes the massager. It’s featured on a new website, Frida Uncensored, alongside a series of other explicit videos. In one, Ms. Akira instructs viewers on how to insert a cup designed to help with conception by keeping sperm close to the cervix. In another, she demonstrates how to do a breast massage for milk flow using another Frida product.

Frida started its baby care brand in 2014 with NoseFrida, a mucus-suction tube for unplugging stuffy infant noses, which made the brand popular among parents. Its products now appear in 30,000 stores across the country. In the decade since its launch, the company has expanded into pregnancy and postpartum care, with items like frozen pads and witch hazel foam for postpartum swelling and pain.

The brand has always focused on the more unpleasant aspects of this life phase, and in recent years its advertising campaigns have reflected that, featuring vignettes that show lactating breasts and pained postpartum mothers in the bathroom that pushed the boundaries around when women’s bodies are and aren’t deemed appropriate for public viewing. Those ads were banned from social media platforms and network TV for being too explicit. For Frida to now cast a porn actress takes the provocation one step further.

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