Anyone seen The Business of Being Born?
I recommend it if you are interested in: health care, obstetrics, the history and sociology of birth, medicine and the law, medicine and business, crunchy granola anything, home birth, hospital birth, surgical birth, surgical birth in apes, Ina May Gaskin, Michel Odent, a somewhat fanatical WHO rep, yuppies, hippies, Twilight Sleep, conspiracy theories, bonding, babies, or all of the above.
The documentary follows the stories of a few pregnant women and integrates their footage with interviews/commentary by various experts (and "experts"). My reaction to the commentary was mixed; there's certainly an agenda here, some of it's flawed, and there isn't a ton of new stuff, but I still found it interesting. Then again I find all of the above interesting.
If you have never watched a birth (live or on film): home, birth center, hospital, even a C-section, there's a little sampling of it all and it's pretty incredible. If you have ever briefly considered an elective C-section for non-medical reasons, by all means watch footage of a C-section. Ho-Ly Cow. If you ever want to give birth in any way, I recommend watching a few types of births--you will need to be comfortable with a little nudity though. There are thousands on YouTube (although you'll need to register...most are flagged for "18 and over"), or you can check out Ricki's doc.
Here are a few reviews: somewhat positive at the NYT, somewhat negative at Science-Based Medicine, somewhat snarky at The Village Voice.
I will mention it in my upcoming guest post (on choices in pregnancy and birth) at Hannah's work blog...which I am working on. Really!
15 comments:
I too am interested in all of the above. I added it to the top of my Blockbuster.com list. Thanks for the recommendation!
Did Rikki Lake just give birth in the picture on the top of this post?
I have heard about this documentary and the controversy. I will have to check it out. You should film your new one's birth.
Have you thought about doing that? Do hospitals even let you?
That's not Ricki Lake, but you do see one of her births in the documentary.
I'm curious what controversy you have heard about...to me it doesn't seem that controversial. The main point of the movie is that women should be aware of their choices. But I guess the topic of home birth can get people ruffled up.
You can film your own birth, although I don't know if I would want to!
Well I guess I should say that I saw her talking about this on Entertainment Tonight and some doctors were giving her a hard time because they don't agree with home births.
So I really don't know how much controversy that is or if Entertainment Tonight makes everything controversial.
Ok, a woman called our office like 8 months ago and asked us if we'd seen it because they screened it at USU, so we tried to get a screener copy from the production company (since I don't think BYU would let us show it) and they never got back to us. I knew that picture looked familiar, how funny.
I guess it is controversial on some level, but to me it seems like if people knew more about safe home birth, they wouldn't be so scared of it.
not all hospitals will let you film your birth - you'd have to check.
gtk. I am pretty sure mine does...although...no cameras in the OR, at least not during surgery, at least that's what I thought at the time. Matt didn't even peek over the curtain until afterward, maybe they didn't let him or maybe he was too busy helping me not throw up (or not throwing up himself).
I always enjoy birth movies - I will put this on my list.
Having someone filming a birth might be distracting to the mom - or maybe they aren't even aware of what's going on - I wasn't too aware of anything but the contractions myself!!
I just heard of this movie today from a client...I am intrigued!
We have pictures of my whole C-section and I am fairly certain that they would have let us film it if we wanted to. However, since only David is allowed in the room, it makes it hard to decide if you want stills or movies of the "money shot". We opted for stills.
If, for some reason, you do have another c-section, you should encourage Matt to watch (at least just the pulling out part). David thought it was amazing.
woof, i'm not looking forward to giving birth
I haven't seen the movie, although I want to now, but I don't have blockbuster.com so I can't. I only read the NYT review and what I got out of it is that I'm so glad to have the expensive and overused surgery to get my babies out and I'm feeling quite relieved to never have to go through labor again. But for everyone else who can handle and enjoy that pain, go for it in your bathtub for all I care! I dono't see why it has to be a big thing at all, as long as everyone knows the risks they're taking according to their choice.
Susie, You really thought labor was worse than the C-section recovery? Really? I
I thought labor was the most horrible thing that had ever happened to me, and I hope it will always remain that way. The doctor told me later that my uterus was paper-thin from my last c-section and that's why it could have been more painful so early on. For now, I don't mind c-section recovery that much to go through all that pain again. And generally, I'm not really a baby about pain. Not that I've had that much. Basically, I'm not afraid of getting a shot, and I am afraid of labor.
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