We saw this truly excellent documentary on thursday. for anyone who’s having a baby, thinking about having a baby, knows someone who’s having a baby, knows someone who’s had a baby, was ever a baby… wait… anyway, this movie is relevant to anyone who is interested in how political and economic forces work together to affect our available choices in giving birth in america. they have the effect of enforcing the idea of birth as a medical process, rather than a natural experience. there are two themes that are repeated throughout the movie:

1. it’s not whether natural birth is better than medical birth (or vice versa), it’s that expecting parents are not getting all the information they need to make an informed choice about what type of birth is best for them.
2. if natural birth is chosen and the venue is the hospital, the odds are against that actually happening.

watch the trailer below for a nice little preview. -peter

You can also order the video from netflix, “The Business of Being Born.” It basically echoed all the information I had been gathering from my informal interviews of friends and any woman I met with a kid really. I had started to sense a very strong theme among all these women, that once in the hospital, they were first given a reason why they needed the drug pitocin (often a pre-risk of a risk??) which led to very strong contractions and the need for an epidural, and in some cases, while induced contractions were possibly overly strong, cervical dilation had still not occurred, creating a “need” for other interventions: vacuum, forceps, episiotomy, cesarean. How would birth have been for these women if their natural contractions/dilation had been allowed to progress without drugs/interventions… Hmmm…. Anyways, the US cesarean rate is now nearly 40%. Most doctors have never even witnessed a “natural” birth. But– they’ve seen lots of surgeries. U.S. mother/baby death statistics are also among the highest of industrialized countries. One percent of births here take place at home with a midwife. In Japan, for example, that number is 70%. Anyways…. If any of this information has ever caused you to wonder, as it has recently to me, renting the movie is a good idea. I can also reccommend some great books. -Erin