“If you really want a humanized birth, the best thing to do is get the hell out of the hospital,” says the former director of Women’s and Children’s Health, World Health Organization.
Wait, ba-wuh? Aren’t you supposed to go to the hospital? Isn’t that the designated starting line in life? For most of us, this is true, but this new documentary produced by Ricki Lake claims that most American women are ignorant about childbirth. How ignorant? Try ranking second on newborn death rate out of the entire developed world. With all the advancement in technology and the big dollars invested into its medical system, the US is still largely ill equipped in performing a natural practice like delivering a baby, especially compared to other countries. The Business of Being Born tries to answer why, and how that influences 1 out of 3 American women to prefer the C-section, a practice that is meant to be a last resort.
I’m a man, and I’m by no means a scientist named Arnold Schwarzenegger, so I’ll never know the pain or the joy of childbirth—but as the The Business of Being Born accurately points out, I’ve always assumed it’d be a very painful and terrifying ordeal, because every single one I’ve witnessed in films or medical documentaries look like it is a very painful and terrifying ordeal. It never really occurred to me that the common denominator could be the doctor, not the childbirth. And if you’re like most people, it never occurred to you either.
The worth of this film—like other hidden-gem documentaries—is that it asks questions few of us even thought to ask because they’re commonly accepted as the norm. Though too often this doc plunges into rah-rah midwifery propaganda (relax, it’s not as ridiculous as it sounds), it does enlighten by revealing a lot of misconceptions about birth. The surprising one being the lithotomy position (lying on your back with your legs suspended) that every doctor makes you do, which is actually the worst position to get into because it makes the pelvis smaller. It also digs into the history of how midwives became unpopular in America when they’re almost a requirement in European hospitals. The film points to racist flyers used by clinics in early 20th century to paint midwives as dirty and primitive immigrants, when the truth is they’re trained, medically equipped, and reliable (one midwife admits that the only time she had ever missed a delivery was on 9/11, because she couldn’t get into the city). Plus, they’re much cheaper.
But why would hospitals do this? Why would doctors try to dupe pregnant women? Is it really because it’s a billion-dollar industry? The Business of Being Born starts out as a personal story for Ricki Lake on how she felt cheated out of her birth experience and wanted a home birth, but then treads into Sicko territory as it attempts to paint a conspiracy involving insurance companies in cahoots with hospitals to strong-arm midwife centers. Unfortunately, it only scratches the surface. Director Abby Epstein at one point cuts back and forth between experts talking about doctors’ incompetence with snippets of the “Miracle of Birth” sketch from Monty Python’s Meaning of Life. It’s brazen, and while it’s superbly effective in visualizing what is being said, it’s about as informative as me checking off a list. Not that the film doesn’t make sound scientific arguments, but it’s a shame that it has to resort to smear tactics and sensationalism to cover up the fact that the film repeats its arguments a lot.
What’s most eye opening is not the expose on the “scam”, or even the medicinal foul-ups that hospitals constantly make. Rather, it’s the shocking fact that there is a safe middle ground that almost nobody is using. The film isn’t saying that doctors can’t deliver babies—in fact, the film shows how useful a C-section can be when needed—but that too often, they are overkill. It’s not their job, and many doctors feel the same way unless there are legitimate complications. Otherwise, the administered drugs actually make things worse, and having an unnecessary Cesarean is an irresponsible and dangerous move.
The most valuable minutes of the movie come in the form of bare home birth videos—including those of Ricki Lake’s and Epstein’s own. Nobody is screaming, nobody is yelling “Push!” like a madman, and the birth seems almost spontaneous, everything going right as rain. They’re unbelievable to see, and they’re the best argument the film makes. It’s a natural cycle of life. It doesn’t have to be treated as some alarming emergency.
"The Business of Being Born" opens January 9, 2008 and is rated G. Documentary. Written and directed by Abby Epstein. Starring Ricki Lake, Abby Epstein.
