The Business of Being Born and Midwifery in Our Country

When I was pregnant with Avital I was obsessed with learning as much about the whole process of pregnancy and delivery as I could.  I read tons of books including this and others I'll review for you guys eventually.  I saw as many documentaries I could get my hands on and a couple I even dragged Richie to the theaters for.  And I dvr'ed and watched A Baby Story on TLC before many an afternoon nap time.

At the time, The Business of Being Born (a documentary by Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein) was just released.  Richie and I watched it together and were riveted.  I thought it was brilliant and I was so proud of what they were putting out there!  On the flip side, Risa (my midwife/aunt-in-law) was not so thrilled with it.  She thought it was a bit too extreme and it was dangerously touting hospitals as evil when they are not really something we women should be afraid of.

That said, midwifery is close to non-existant in this country and I believe it is connected to our poor maternity care and high death rates for mothers and babies (the U.S. has the second worst newborn death rate in the developing world according to the movie).  Almost everywhere else in the world midwives attend 70-80% of the births where in the U.S. they attend less than 10%...

Last week Liza and I had a free afternoon while she had the day off and Avi was sleeping, so decided to give it another whirl.  I was still impressed and think that it's worth watching for all of you who are pregnant, who's wife is pregnant, are ever planning to get pregnant, are ever planning to get someone pregnant, or care about someone in any of the above situations!  Please though take it with a grain of salt and remember that modern medicine saves lives!  But I'd rather live my life without it if I can manage;)  Hospitals and medicine are for emergency situations and by avoiding them when it's safe to, we can see a bit deeper into this amazing life we've been granted by nature.

Here's a tidbit of trailer from the movie:

Avi's birth taught me so much about myself and this world and life and family.  In those unmedicated 12 hours, I was enlightened and made modest.  It taught me compassion and pain and joy all bundled up into one mind blowing moment...  I'd do it again in a heartbeat.