The Business of Being Born

People are talking about Ricki Lake’s film, The Business of Being Born

An excerpt from the Breastfeeding Blog:

“The Business of Being Born” demonstrates some disturbing trends. First, it shows that vaginal birth is becoming endangered in this country. Labor under strict time frames, with induction, medication, and surgery is fast becoming the norm. Natural childbirth is just about extinct in most hospitals, and is viewed by many in the medical professions as a quaint pursuit having no particular value to the mother or baby (or worse, representing some kind of narcissistic “glory” for the mother). The film shows what normal birth looks like, and it provides historical and context for birth in the U.S. (which helped me understand, for the first time, what “twilight sleep” really meant). And it hints at what birth looks like in other industrialized countries, where it’s far less interventionist, cheaper, and with better outcomes for mothers and babies. (For a sense of how different it is in England, where women are now guaranteed the option of a homebirth, see this article) The film is also not unrealistic about the need for medical intervention in some cases. When it comes time to offer some explanations for the current state of birth in the U.S., it discusses a number of factors, from money, to liability, to the unfamiliarity of most new doctors with normal birth. But I’m interested in another question: What is going to make this change?It’s so sad that in the 18 years since I first gave birth via Cesarean section for no apparent reason, that things have stayed the same or gotten worse in the birthing climate.

Two years ago when I was pregnant with Rosie and still grieving for my stillborn son Raphael, I was told that yes, I certainly could have a VBAC despite my two C-section scars, as long as the baby came early or on time (my previous spontaneous vaginal deliveries were all a week or more over due), the baby was 8 pounds or less (mine were all 9 pounds or more) and as long as I didn’t gain any more than 25 pounds (puhleese!) They also wanted to induce an control my labor.

And frankly something in my mind just snapped. They were going to railroad me into another Cesarean anyway, or at least that’s how it seemed to me. So instead of playing that game while dealing with the prior emotinally devastating stillbirth experience, I just scheduled the C-section. At least it seemed more honest and for me emotionally less draining. But I wasn’t fooled. That surgery was for medicolegal reasons, not scientific or physiological ones. It was not a medically necessary surgery.

From Rheality Check:
It seems reasonable to suggest that the American for-profit health care system would have an institutionalized preference for more expensive medical births over the cost-efficient midwife system. It’s not that it’s a conspiracy against women so much as just an institutional preference for the more profitable methods over the less profitable methods.
This is always a touchy subject, because once you start talking about it, it seems like you’re criticizing women who have medical births, when that’s not it at all. Most everyone accepts that a hefty percentage of births need to be in a hospital setting because they’re risky births, but the issue is why are so many perfectly normal births being medicalized? How much does the need for hospitals to make money off childbirth feed the beast? It seems like an interesting documentary, worth checking out at least.
From Hollywoodbitchslap:

Being both male and blissfully unaware of the boundless affection newborns offer, “The Business of Being Born” hit me like a truck the way it details the fight of motherhood in America. This isn’t so much a documentary as it is a call to arms for pregnant women everywhere; begging those with child to rise up and question their birthing preferences. If I found it a captivating, disturbing film, I can only imagine the picture is a must see for most potential parents.

Producer Ricki Lake stumbled upon something while in the process of her own pregnancy: her delivery choices were not being made out of education, but a predestined medical road all expectant mothers take. It spooked her into action, and along with director Abby Epstein, Lake delved into research, discovering the well-oiled obstetric machine wasn’t particularly concerned with proper care for new moms. Lake and Epstein hit the streets to find a better way, a more natural step, toward improved pregnancy health and medical standards.

The argument is simple: hospital stays have replaced midwives over the last 50 years in America, and the results have been alarmingly negative (while other developed nations have retained midwives and their positive birthing outcomes). With infant mortality on the rise, along with a sharp increase in caesarian births, something has soured within the delicate motherhood process; the excruciating, yet oddly simplistic journey of life now complicated by the evils of corporate structure and unnecessary medical procedures. “Being Born” asks the question: what happened to the midwives?

Once a ubiquitous presence, midwives are gradually being stripped of their legitimacy. Lake and Epstein point their fingers directly at the medical industry and their decades of propaganda; luring women to the comfort of a hospital presided over by half-interested obstetricians and gallons of drugs to both speed up and numb the birthing process. It’s a one-sided argument, but it’s a persuasive one. “Being Born” also steps into the time machine to revisit barbaric maternity ward standards of the early and mid-part of the 20th century, while also tracking the rise and fall of midwives. These women have faced dire employment opportunities standing in the shadow of the well-funded and comforting medical industry, who slowly caress their favorite six-shooter: the unforgiving insurance racket. Who needs proper health care and delivery procedures when there’s ingrained routine and serious coin to be made?

See the trailer here.