The Business of Being Born (2008)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

Abby Epstein

Genre:

Documentary

Plot:

Birth: it's a miracle. A rite of passage. A natural part of life. But more than anything, birth is a business...

Plot Keywords:

Birth | Hospital | Female Frontal Nudity | Post Partum Depression | Female Nudity

Cast

Julia Barnett Tracy	...	Herself
Louann Brizendine	...	Herself
Michael Brodman	...	Himself
Patricia Burkhardt	...	Herself
Tina Cassidy	...	Herself
Robbie Davis-Floyd	...	Herself - Medical Anthropologist
Eugene Declerq	...	Himself
Abby Epstein	...	Herself
Ina May Gaskin	...	Herself - Midwife
Nadine Goodman	...	Herself - Public Health Specialist
Carolyn Havens Neimann	...	Herself - Midwife
Susan Hodges	...	Herself - President, Citizens for Midwifery
Gregor Huebner	...	Himself
La Juana Huebner	...	Herself
Ricki Lake	...	Herself
Elan V. McAllister	...	Herself (as Elan Vital McAllister)
Jacques Moritz	...	Himself
Cara Muhlhahn	...	Herself
Dr. Michel Odent	...	Himself
David Radzinski	...	Himself
Mayra Radzinski	...	Herself
Catherine Tanksley	...	Herself - Midwife
Van Tracy	...	Himself
Dr. Marsden Wagner	...	Himself

Runtime:

USA:87 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Company:

Barranca Productions

Movie Connections:

Features The Meaning of Life (1983)

Soundtrack:

Feel Like Making Love

Real life experience before your eyes

Everyone in America should watch this film, especially fathers and mothers-to-be.

As a father of two babies delivered by Caesarean section, my real life experience reflects what this film presents. With a first pregnancy, men like me might trust a maternity and birthing health care system that obviously is accepted by everyone we know. As an engineer and technologist, I am attracted to statistics and procedures, I am attracted to managed systems and to logical decision-making. And I understand that giving birth involves a lot of money, and that doctors, hospitals and health care companies have a burden in how to run a successful enterprise.

But the American birthing system is missing something very important... our humanity, our sensitivity, our vulnerability. Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein reveal the vulnerability of father, mother and child during pregnancy, how easily we allow a managed system to make decisions in the name of our well-being. When faced with an overwhelming majority of our family and friends who know only one way to give birth, in a hospital, there is little room for anything else.

This film challenges what we assume works, and informs us that there are alternatives accepted everywhere else in the world but in the United States. I pray that other mothers and fathers-to-be, for the sake of their children's' psychological and emotional health, will step up to the plate, become informed consumers about what is happening, and consider a traditional birth, at home.

Your first step is to see this film.