2008, USA
Documentary, Drama
READ THE REVIEW AT The Desert Sun.
Extended version:
When American women can schedule their births around perceived more important occasions and yet maintain the second worst newborn death rate amongst developing countries, something is wrong.
Whereas Michael Moore attacked health insurance red tape in SiCKO, director Abby Epstein focuses on the medical necessity behind ubiquitous surgical births in The Business of Being Born. At the urging of friend and executive producer Ricki Lake, Epstein examines how such a natural process became a drive-through business.
Slowly creeping its way back into accepted practice is midwifery. Often dismissed under the assumption that it utilizes unskilled women with no access to emergency equipment, it is shocking how little is known about trained midwives and their techniques. What is more remarkable is how little information is given to a woman as she is going into labor and pressured to comply with a doctor’s directives towards a quick delivery.
The documentary does not villanize all doctors of obstetrics (though one is quoted as saying that natural childbirth is just an example of "feminist machoism"), but it does present horrendous statistics that accompany a country so focused on time management and compares them to countries where natural childbirth is, well, natural.
A midwife allows the family to experience the birth in a living room, not a waiting room. The mother is surrounded by loved ones and a midwife who never leaves her side, not a medical staff and an intermittent doctor. The birth is treated as an experience, not an illness.
The film examines the difficult birthing position utilized in hospitals, the unnecessary and hindering cycle of Pitocin and epidurals, and the appalling medical history of obstetric interventions that have resulted in far more harm than good.
Epstein unintentionally becomes part of the show when she becomes pregnant during the research stage, and her story provides an interesting example of what happens when things do not go as planned. Lake allows her personal experience to color some interviews, but such ego can be overlooked for her good intentions.
The pregnant New York City subjects are honest and open, allowing filming of their most intimate moments as they give birth. The medical interviews largely support midwifery, but there are representatives from the opposition. However, many are in defensive mode or give the impression of believing the film would have a more general focus on birthing techniques.
The film provides a fascinating study of a system gone wrong in the United States. It is an example of too much reliance on drugs and machines and the modernly accepted detachment from understanding our own bodies. As celebrities become "too posh to push," designer births outnumber natural childbirths. And who wants to use Britney Spears as a model for motherhood?