The London underground can be a nightmare at the best of times. Packed platforms and carriages don’t make for an enjoyable commute for the millions of people who use it every day. But, if you think you’ve had a tough journey recently, spare a thought for mum-to-be Miri Michaeli Schwartz, who’s been using the tube throughout her pregnancy.
Like thousands of other pregnant women using the underground, struggled to get commuters to allow her to take a ‘priority seat’. After months of frustration, Miri, 31, took a hidden camera on her commute – when she was over 30 weeks pregnant – to highlight just how hard it is for pregnant women to get a seat.
Writing on her Facebook page, Miri said: “Almost nine months of commuting in the Tube with the ‘Baby on board’ badge have come to an end.
“At first I thought it is a brilliant London invention. How will other people know it’s not easy traveling with morning sickness if I don’t yet have a real big baby bump? Now, from the top of 38 weeks of pregnancy, when there’s absolutely no way to ignore my huge bump (with a cute little baby girl inside of it), I can tell you - London Tube commuters just don’t care.”
On her first journey with the camera, Miri sees a woman and her child doing his homework on the jubilee line. Both ignore her and Miri writes: “I think the first woman in the video, doing homework with her child on the Jubilee line, missed a chance to teach him a much more valuable lesson - how to respect others and be a little less selfish.”
In the clip, many passengers can be seen avoiding her looking around and imploring anyone to offer up their seat.
She added: “I wanted to show people how they look when they just completely ignore me. I already know how people look when they try to act like they haven’t seen me.
“The newspaper is held up a little higher, the phone comes out, headphones are placed in ears or sometimes… they stare at my bump and just don’t care.”
Finally, at the end of the video a young man stands up to give her a seat. A reminder to us all that really, we should we taking more time to look out for others.