The Business of Being Born | 
| Director: Abby Epstein
Actors: Ricki Lake, Dr. Michel Odent, Abby Epstein, Cara Muhlhahn, Dr. Marsden Wagner
Studio: New Line Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $27.98
Buy New: $19.69
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Avg. Customer Rating:  37 reviews
Sales Rank: 1802
Format: Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Dvd-video, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), Spanish (Dubbed)
Rating: Unrated
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 84
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: 794043120787
UPC: 794043120787
EAN: 0794043120787
ASIN: B0013LL2XY
Theatrical Release Date: 2007
Release Date: May 6, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Condition: Brand New and Factory Sealed Item Fast Shipping
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Product Description
Genre: Documentary
Rating: UN
Release Date: 6-MAY-2008
Media Type: DVD
Amazon.com
Is it conceivable that in the United States, profit is increasingly driving the business of birthing--sometimes at the expense of the best possible outcome for mothers and babies? Should birth be viewed and treated as a natural process or a potential medical emergency? This documentary, produced by Ricki Lake and directed by Abby Epstein, opines that money and fear are changing the way Americans give birth, and not necessarily for the better. Beginning with shocking statistics that the United States has the second-worst newborn death rate in the developed world and one of the highest maternal mortality rates in industrialized countries, the film presents interviews with medical professionals including Dr. Jacques Moritz, OB/GYN from St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital; Dr. Michel Odent, OB/GYN researcher; and Masden Wagner, MD, former Director for Women's and Children's Health at the World Health Organization. Each expert paints a dismal picture of American birthing and emphasizes the frequent overuse of medical procedures in what are otherwise potentially normal deliveries. Stressing the prevalent use of midwives in birthing in other developed nations (70% of births are attended by midwives in Europe and Japan, versus 8% in the U.S.), the documentary then follows Cara Muhlhahn, a certified nurse midwife in New York City, as she attends a variety of home births. The footage is candid and sometimes very graphic, showing various home-delivery methods, including water birth. Interviews with Cara and her clients emphasize their shared philosophy on birthing as a normal life process that, when attended by a caring and well-trained midwife, can be both empowering and exhilarating. Though a midwife is often characterized as a supportive, but medically untrained birth attendee, the film dispels that stereotype, stressing a good midwife's solid training and knowledge of when it's appropriate to seek outside medical intervention. Key in every birth is a commitment to doing what's best for mother and baby, regardless of pre-planned agendas. The filmmaker's lament is that hospitals and doctors often too quickly advocate medical intervention in the interest of saving time and avoiding potential litigation. While unquestionably advocating midwifery over hospital birthing, this documentary presents solid expert opinions, concrete facts and statistics, and anecdotal experiences of both mothers and midwives that are crucial in making an informed decision about the use of midwifery in birthing as well as enlightening as to the current state of birthing in the United States. --Tami Horiuchi
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| Customer Reviews: Read 32 more reviews...
 Excellent DVD July 25, 2008
To know what is WRONG with birth in America, all you need to do is watch this documentary.
 EVERY WOMAN NEEDS TO SEE THIS July 11, 2008
I've been present at four hospital births and the experience left me convinced to have a home birth for myself and child. This doc presents World Health Org. wisdom and in-the-trenches experience. Watch it with your heart and mind wide open and you can't help see that North America is on its way to a crisis in terms of our relationship to the most natural experience in the world.
Way to go Ricki and Abby. Noble work. Essential work. Life-enriching work.
Something every parent or parent-to-be should see July 11, 2008
I LOVED this video! It is so important for every mother to see. It's so good!
Disturbing, shocking . . . TRUE! July 11, 2008
I'm still wiping the tears from my eyes as a type this . . . . I'm elated, enraged, encouraged and most importantly, I feel empowered!
I just watched "The Business of Being Born" (I signed up for Netflix just to see this film, lol)
This film was disturbingly accurate, and even though I've yet to give birth, I was moved to tears: the births shown (including Ricki's) were absolutly what birth can and should be. For those naysayers that think this is just "proppaganda": well there were many experts on boths sides of the fence in this film. Maturnity care in this country is broken and this film exposes this truth without demonizing Dr's. It was refreshing to see the dr's in this film talk openly about the current state of hospital policy, interventions, etc. I don't think TBOBB was trying to endorse home-birth per se, I think the gist was to bring the facts out in the open and show women that they do have a choice. NEVER in the film did anyone say "home or hospital is the BEST for everyone" No one said intervention is bad, everyone acknowledged that things can happen. This film should be required for every medical student.
I wonder why ACOG and the AMA took such offense at this film? Why because it was true? . . . .or because it may help women realize that they do have other options? I think it is both.
My favorite part of the film was when one of the experts said: "IF you want to humanize birth, get the hell out of the hosiptal." Priceless!
I think this was flawless and beautifuly put together. Thank you Ricki . . . thank you for encouraging women to empower themselves!
eye-opening documentary July 8, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
*SPOILERS*
According to statistics, the infant mortality rate in the United States exceeds that of virtually every other nation in the industrialized world. The U.S. is also the only place in which far more women give birth in hospitals than at home under the care of a professional midwife. The documentary "The Business of Being Born" sees a connection between those two facts.
Executive producer Ricki Lake first conceived of this film after she delivered her first baby in the hospital and then felt cheated of the potentially beautiful and meaningful experience a home birth might have provided. With the aid of director Abby Epstein, Lake has gathered together a group of women, couples, midwives and physicians who, through their own personal experiences and/or studies on the matter, help to provide evidence for her case that, for the large majority of women, delivering at home is preferable, on both a practical and spiritual level, to delivering in a hospital. Lake has even allowed herself to be filmed in the process of giving birth to her second child at home.
This is an eye-opening and informative movie that admittedly provides really only one side to the issue. But it makes a pretty convincing case for that side and certainly gets the audience thinking. First, it offers a number of startling statistics, the prime one being that roughly one third of all babies born in America are now delivered through Caesarian Section, a procedure that is classified as "major surgery" but which is often treated with casual indifference by both physicians and patients (the shots of a Caesarian are far more "gruesome" than any of the shots of actual childbirth we are shown). The movie also recounts a brief but somewhat disturbing history of obstetrics practices in the United States during the past century when many women were put into "twilight sleep" and missed the birthing experience entirely. The movie also points out that, in a hospital setting, a "cascade of interventions" often prevents women from having the ultimate say in how they choose to deliver their babies. But the majority of the case is made through personal anecdotes from mothers and midwives concerning their own birthing experiences, as well as by the recording of many of those actual home births live on camera. Interestingly, after all the successful home births, the movie ends on one in which the child arrives prematurely and is in a breach position and thus must enter the world in a hospital room after all. It's an indication of the honesty and courage of the filmmakers that they didn't feel called upon to edit that sequence out of the movie.
Yet, for the most part, the film takes the multi-billion dollar medical industry to task for being too quick to use drugs and a scalpel in the birthing experience. The movie also harshly criticizes the insurance industry for failing to recognize the much greater cost efficiency of home-birthing and hence refusing to cover it in their policies, thereby forcing many midwives to simply close up shop.
In many ways, "The Business of Being Born" is fighting something of an uphill battle in that it appears counterintuitive - especially to a generation raised on the belief that the medical industry can do anything - to suggest that a birthing process with a physician and modern medical equipment on hand could actually be less safe than a birthing process without them (though the movie is quick to point out that the midwives are all state-certified and trained to deal with any unforeseen complications that might arise). Still, for women facing this decision - as well as for a society that for over a century now has frowned upon even the thought of natural childbirth - "The Business of Being Born" may serve as a paradigm-shifting event.
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