Review of The Business of Being Born (2008) by Another V — 07 Dec 2016

Thank you to Abby Epstein and Ricki Lake for making this documentary. Thanks to Ricki and all the moms for sharing their inspiring personal homebirthing experiences.

Women have been giving birth since the dawn of time, but normal birth in the US has been hijacked for decades by a medical healthcare system that repeatedly turns what should be normal births into medical emergencies, often leading to more expensive and more complicated procedures. When there is a real medical emergency, those medical procedures can save lives, but too many births that should have been normal are turned into emergencies by bad hospital policies and procedures that are very common.

American birth statistics are the worst in the industrialized world. Outcomes are statistically worse here. They are better in Europe and Japan, where more births are at home and midwife assisted.

Between the fetal heart monitor tether that prevents normal and natural movements of the birthing mom and the pitocin drip that's almost obligatory in some hospitals to the episiotomy that is pretty much standard procedure in some hospitals, there's a lot of room for improvement to the cattlization of the birthing process. By cattlization, I mean the treatment of birthing moms like cattle. By simply letting birthing moms move about the room naturally, with light set to be more comfortable to their eyes, and some helpful props like a birth ball, birth chair, etc, a great deal of these usually unnecessary interventions could be avoided.

Reform is needed, and more options and choices. Women shouldn't continue to be treated like cattle in the US during birth, unless that is what they really want. Some moms are okay with it because it has come to be expected. They think it must be necessary if that's how we do it. Such blind trust and faith. If that's how you want it fine, but why should everybody be forcibly treated like cattle?

And when I say forced, I mean forced. Because, if you aren't given all your options and had them explained in a way that you understand, you are forced to choose what your provider has decided is best (or most profitable and most convenient) for them. The choices are taken from you. And also, forced, because staff may physically force you to accept whatever it is they want you to do, by for example, cutting an episiotomy against your wishes when it's not medically really necessary or putting pitocin in your IV without telling you or making it physically impossible for you to change position. This is all very common.

Think you're safe because you wrote a birth plan? Why is it that providers really don't seem interested in birth plans? Apparently a birth plan is completely irrelevant. Just a piece of paper to give you a nice birth fantasy to think about, when the reality you will get is how your medical birth professional thinks it should be done.

The potential for a positive birth experience is higher in a home birth. The mother has a lot more control of her environment. There is less likely to be large numbers of staff in the room or someone screaming at the mother to push. No one will be forcing her to lie flat on her back. She will not be tethered on a short leash to a fetal monitor. The lights can be adjusted to her comfort. And most likely that baby will be in your arms just moments after birth, vs having your baby endlessly poked, prodded, cleaned and monitored for however long the staff want to do it (could be an hour or more) before you finally get to see and hold your baby.