Ricki Lake’s Birth Documentary Comes to Huntsville

By Kristen Brinkley

The Alabama Birth Coalition invites you to the FREE sneak preview of The Business of Being Born. It will be shown in Huntsville on January 31, 2008 at 7:00 pm at the UAH Chan Auditorium. After a disappointing birth experience with her first child, actress Ricki Lake recruits filmmaker Abby Epstein to examine and question the way American women have babies. The film interlaces intimate birth stories with surprising historical, political and scientific insights as well as shocking statistics about the current maternity care system. When director Epstein discovers she is pregnant during the making of the film, the journey becomes even more personal. Should most births be viewed as a natural life process, or should every delivery be treated as a potentially catastrophic medical emergency?

The film includes interviews with well-known advocates for physiological birth including Dr. Michel Odent, an OB/GYN and author of The Caesarean; Susan Hodges, President of Citizens for Midwifery; Dr. Robbie Davis-Floyd, PhD in Medical Anthropology and author of Birth as an American Rite of Passage; Ina May Gaskin, Certified Professional Midwife and author of Spiritual Midwifery and Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth; and Dr. Marsden Wagner, former director of Women’s and Children’s Health, World Health Organization.

The Business of Being Born advocates for the role of the Certified Nurse Midwife. In the words of Dr. Odent, “We are completely lost and we have forgotten to raise the most simple questions. What are the basic needs of women in labor? The fact that midwives have disappeared is a symptom of the lack of understanding of the basic needs of women in labor.” This film is a must see for EVERY woman!

Kristen Brinkley is a UAH nursing student, mother of two, and an advocate for more respectful birthing practices.M