i have been waiting f o r e v e r to receive the newish documentary "the business of being born" and it came yesterday!!!!
chris and i watched it together - we may or may not be interested in starting a little family ;) so i was looking forward to it. i've been hearing so much about it and the film lived up to its reputation for sure. it was beautiful and heart breaking and enraging... and honestly, a little scary. the maternal mortality and the neonatal mortality rates in the united states are staggering compared to other developed countries - that's because our health care system (and our people) treat pregnancy, labor and delivery as illnesses, as something to be treated, medicated and numbed. other countries allow midwives to attend normal, healthy births as they've done for thousands and thousands of years... we hand mothers over to surgeons - just to have a baby!
as enraging and scary as the material presented is, the movie is also so hopeful. it paints a picture of how birth can be. and birth can be, of course, painful, messy, scary (human) but also empowering, natural, and happy. it paints a whole new picture of the scripture "and women shall find salvation in the pains of childbirth...".
salvation:salve:healing:wholeness - definitely.
5 comments:
Thanks for the review. I've heard about this and wasn't sure if I wanted to see it or not. I'm still not sure, but it's nice to hear something about it!
That's my comment up there with the "..." I fixed the name. silly me.
yea for baby Haws... get busy!
Cassie, I LOVED this movie!!! We may or may not be thinking about growing our little family as well ;) and the felt very pertinent to me as I had an emergency c-section with C. Scary stuff! But so important to know about, too. And like you said, full of hopeful, powerful, beautiful images as well...
On a similar note, one of our very good friends from up here in NH is moving to Philly to study midwifery at Penn. I'd love to connect her with you all at some point.
peace,
Caren
PS: Here's a link to the post I did on the movie:
http://bottomland.typepad.com/bottomland/2008/05/the-business-of.html#comments
I'd like to get this movie, I've heard great things. Another good resource is Ina May's Guide to Childbirth -- absolutely the most empowering birth resource I found, along with my Bradley class.
See you in a few weeks!!
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