The Business of Being Born

I'm watching "The Business of Being Born".  I've heard a lot about it, so I was somewhat curious.  While understanding that every single woman in the world has a completely different view of what childbirth is "supposed to" be like, I anticipated a certain bias.  I was right.  I now know that doctors are all evil, don't care about your personal wishes, and are just all out for money.

I have trouble looking at this documentary as a balanced view of childbirth, because, well, it's not.  There are so many things that I see and hear that, while it makes sense, makes many assumptions.  The main idea toward this documentary is that natural, drug-free, home-birthing is the ideal.  Great. (For me, the ideal is the baby just falling out all on it's own, perfectly healthy and pain-free.)  They quote statistics about how there is a significantly lower infant mortality rate in midwife-assisted childbirth than there is in the hospital, but then, they talk about how midwives do extensive medical history to determine if one is a good candidate for home-birth.  I don't recall doctors being given that option.

I was also told that monkeys who give birth via cesarian section do not care about their babies, and that is how it is with mammals, and we are also mammals.  Excuse me?  Are you actually telling me that women will not care about or take care of their children if they are brought into this world using medical intervention?  I was born via cesarean, and I was close to needing one with Girl, and I can honestly say that I could care less how they got her out of me, she was mine and I loved her as much as any one person can.

It is somewhat difficult to reconcile this documentary, since being in Canada rather than the US, stats about insurance, and profits and liabilities aren't really issues to me.  While I do believe that going into labour naturally, and having babies as naturally as possible is great, I also am a firm believer that modern medicine has saved millions of lives.  Yes, women have been giving birth since the dawn of time, but up until "recent" advances, childbirth was the number one killer of women.   This documentary gives a somewhat biased view of hospitals, with the majority of the hospital footage being from the 50's when women were drugged, strapped down to tables and alone in dark rooms.  It seemed a bit like fear-mongering, something this movie was so adamant to say was the reason that so many women opted for medical intervention (fear of childbirth). Ricki Lake said her main goal for the documentary was to alleviate fear, but apparently that means just shifting it to doctors and hospitals.

Perhaps it's different in the US.  The hospital I gave birth in was equipped with birthing tubs, two-person shower, stability balls, beds that converted to allow for numerous labour positions, and likely plenty of other things I didn't use.

I'm all for women being able to make choices and give birth in the way they want, but I do resent being told that if I needed medical intervention that I would love my child less, or feel like less of a woman.

I read a lot of pregnancy forums and so many women go into childbirth (often for the first time) with a concrete plan.  This is how my baby will enter the world.  I went into childbirth with one item on my birth plan...  Get the baby out safely.  I never felt pressured to do anything.  I felt as supported as I needed to be (though, my levels of "support" are somewhat different than many women, in that, I could really care less who delievered my baby, and needed no more mental or emotional support than Husband gave just by being there and making jokes to keep me laughing), and overall had a positive experience.  I had pain medication, gave birth vaginally to a 9 pound baby with no need for stitches, had no trouble breastfeeding and am as bonded with my child as any mom needs to be.  I was given pitocin, (but I would have begged for it if they didn't, being 14 days overdue).   I had no expectations and therefore was not disappointed.   So many women decide how childbirth will go, and unfortunately, it's not really realistic.  It's good to have ideals, but you need to be able to adapt.  Things can change very quickly, and if you are the type of person who has difficulty dealing with change, yes, you will feel pressured, because sometimes you don't have a lot of time to change gears.

If you're someone who is really into home-birth, you'll like this documentary.  It will give you plenty of facts and statistics and scary, out-dated visuals that you can use to freak out your friends.  I, personally, wasn't a fan.  I resent the implication that giving birth in a hospital with pain medication makes me less of a woman, or less of a mother.  Maybe, if everyone just let people have babies in ways that they were comfortable doing it, we'd all feel less pressure and make less promises to ourselves.