The Business of Being Born

This documentary portrays well the reality in which doctors induce hospital deliveries for practicality and financial reasons. Very well directed and with a fascinating script, I had the honor of participating in the documentary with my wife, from images given from the birth of my first daughter.

The Business of Being Born is about birth procedure in the United States today, specifically regarding home births in contrast to hospital births. According to the documentary, these days 99% of births in the United States happen in hospitals. Most women don't even know about their options to have home births or even what a midwife is. Interviews with several birth specialists concluded that this is in fact a travesty, that the rushed, drug-infused deliveries that doctors are pushing on women these days is actually contributing to the United States having one of the highest infant and women mortality rates in any developed country in the world. Host, Ricki Lake and just about every person interviewed in the documentary really pushed women to consider natural home births with midwives. Obviously, this documentary was very biased towards one point of view. Regardless, it really got me thinking about birth and about the questions I should ask if and when I have a baby.

The documentary showed four or five home births on camera. Sure, they were gross but what was nice about them was that they didn't look so frightening. Any time you see a birth scene in a movie, the woman is typically screaming her head off and many times complications arise and interventions are made. The home births made having a baby look like this super happy, empowering thing (and painful of course but I guess that goes without saying). The women were able to have their babies in their own homes on their own terms without having anyone make suggestions that they take drugs or induce.

Of course there are times when those things are needed. I'm not trying to downplay the value of hospitals when it comes to having a baby. Hospitals can provide services that midwives cannot. I just think that it's good to at least think about. Assuming your pregnancy is low-risk, why not try it? I don't know about anyone else, but personally I don't really feel comfortable in hospitals.

I'm a long way off from having to make these kinds of decisions. Who knows if and when I'll even have children. I'm glad I saw The Business of Being Born though. It gave me a lot to think about and really reminded me of the importance of doing research and developing your own birthing plan.

The Business is awesome. About as cool as the punk rock band the Business.

When the movie starts you wonder if the film quality and information in the film is worth it, I mean, it is a documentary. As the film goes on it get's better and better.

Even though I'm not sure if I agree with this film 100% (I haven't had time or necessity to research) I learned a monstrous amount of information and was blown away by how much I didn't know. B.O.B.B. OPENS UP YOUR EYES!

The best part was seeing women barely go through pain, though as the film goes on you do see more and more pain, but it does seem less in some ways than in the hospital.

I would have liked to know more about the dangers of death but they did touch on this mildly.

Like any good piece of propaganda, this movie starts by demonizing the OB/GYN profession (the enemy). The viewer is bombarded with images of early-20th century birthing practices as if they were still in use today. Having hospitals (and of course, insurance companies) set up as the "bad guy", the movie portrays the alternative (midwives) as the "natural" solution. Moreover, home delivery is portrayed as the only real choice for a woman to express her femininity and individual power.

A few hand-picked critics of hospital births are chosen, who promptly spew out some convenient statistics in support of home delivery. Correlations (like infant mortality rates) are presented as causality without even discussing other potential factors. For example, the movie likes to recite the infant mortality rates in the US as being higher along with the higher rates of hospital vs. home births in other industrialized countries. However, at no time do these "experts" note factors like the relative experience levels of midwives in Europe vs. the US. Nor is a qualitative assessment provided that compares the level of care offered. Further, factors like miscarriages are not even discussed (if there are higher rates in Europe then these babies would not be reaching full term, thus diminishing infant mortality at birth), nor are other elements like obesity discussed (the US is the fattest nation of fatties in the world).

One of the things that stood out to me was the frequent use of absolutes in their arguments: "There's no scientific evidence" to support hospital delivery as better than home deliver, etc. etc. Nothing even close to resembling counter-arguments were presented, making this documentary Michael Moore worthy in its biased presentation of its content.

It's a shame something so delicate has been treated with such utter disregard for good science and disinterested research. The movie maker had a clear agenda and presented a completely one-sided argument. If you disagreed with home birth, you simply are a brainwashed fool ready to submit to fake doctors posing as OB/GYNs.

Perhaps the most hilarious part of the movie came at the end, as the filmmaker went into labor one month early with a 3.5 lb baby who was in the breached position, umbilical cord wrapped tightly around its neck, as her water broke in a taxi cab as she was rushed to the ER. In spite of this, the filmmaker mused a month later "I think I would have been OK at home." Wow.

Informative? Sure. Gives a new perspective on a broken system? Definitely. Entertaining? Er ...not really.

After talk-show host Ricki Lake experienced a bad childbirth in-hospital, she decided to try a midwife, and thus THE BUSINESS OF BEING BORN was ...um ...birthed. I can't help but think that some of this (not all) was a ploy by Lake to put herself back in the public eye; specifically, the movie industry. Although this is strictly a documentary, and other actors support various causes (from freeing Darfur to Tibetan independence), this one felt a bit more forced.

The reason I say this is that the entire documentary was exceptionally boring and exceptionally lopsided. I work in the medical field (as an RN) but not in an Obstetrics setting. I can, however, vouch for the terrible cost of healthcare and some of the impersonalness of those giving it (as this documentary pointed out). I've heard doctors talking about "tee times" on the golf course and the need to "get home by dinner," so time is a big factor for physicians (the film pointed out that C-section deliveries peek at 4pm — just prior to dinnertime — and again at 10pm — so doctors can get home to bed). Be damned whether the patient needs a C-section or not, doctors force the decision so that they can "get on with their lives." Cut and run! Even with its interesting take on the care of OB/Gyn patients in the U.S., the film never delves outside of the States even though certain statistics are presented (including telling us that the infant mortality rate in the U.S. is one of the highest amongst developed countries). I would've liked to have seen at least one interview with a Japanese midwife or a European midwife, and have them show us how their system works. But we're never give the opportunity to see this for ourselves.

The boring nature of the film is that it never really finds its focus. Although the title of it is The Business of Being Born, it focused more on the plight of midwives and their care of expectant mothers at home or in midwife clinics. We drive around with midwives, trot down the road with midwives, listen to midwives talk on the phone to patients, and get to watch a couple of in-home births. Then we start the entire process over again.

And there's also a brief and confusing stint in which we learn one of the film's producers is pregnant and trying to decide on prenatal care.

All-in-all it's an informative story, but one that might cause a few too many yawns.