The Business of Being Born

Our best man's wife is giving birth this week. They are expecting a girl named Grace and we all can't wait to meet her. On the note of childbirth, today I saw an extremely eye opening documentary called The Business of Being Born. This is a film made by Abby Epstein after her friend Ricky Lake (yes, the talk show host) didn't have a good experience with having her first child in the hospital. It explored the history of childbirth in America and how as a society America has phased out natural births in favor of hospital births with various interventions. It also reveals a startling fact that America has the second highest infant and mother mortality rate out of the world's developed countries even though 99% of American women give birth in a hospital. In contrast, developed countries such as Japan has a home birth rate as high as 70% and have a lower death rate. Here are some things I learned about the business of childbirth from this film, and it is really amazing. If you don't want any spoilers or if you feel queasy about this subject you can stop reading right here.

1. The birthing position women are in in hospitals is highly unnatural - When you see women have babies in hospitals on TV you often see their legs up in stirrups and ten people telling her to push really hard. The film explained that this is the most unnatural position to have a baby because there is no way for the baby to come out when a woman is lying down. A doctor always has to use a clamp, hands, or a vacuum to extract the baby. It is much easier for a woman to have a baby standing up or squatting because gravity helps her do her work and the baby's head will be lined up with the vaginal opening making the process natural. This made a lot of sense when a childbirth coach showed a fake hip and a baby trying to get out. When the hip is sideways the opening of the hip is angled in such a way that it is pretty much impossible for the baby to fall out. The baby also receives more stress in the horizontal position because it would be pushed up against the hip bone.

2. Hospitals want women out as quickly as possible - This makes sense for the hospital. They want their beds available so they could serve more people and make more money. The result is a great increase in Caesarean section procedures and the administration of drugs that speed up the delivery. They also say that the number of C-sections is higher during 4pm to 10pm because doctors just do not want to stay around. The average vaginal delivery takes 12 hours, but a C-section takes about 20 minutes. So when the doctors and hospitals want women out, they schedule a C-section. The fact is that C-sections are much more risky than vaginal delivery.

3. Home births are cheaper than hospital births - A midwife said that her fees are about $4000 for all of her services. Keep in mind that many of these midwives are highly trained and qualified to deliver babies. The main midwife they featured on the film is a certified nurse who graduated from Columbia and had been delivering babies in hospitals for five years before she became a midwife. In contrast, a vaginal birth in a hospital costs on average $13,000 and a C-Section is major surgery that often costs more than $30,000. The documentary also shows that in a hospital they often pump the mother with various drugs that eventually puts the baby in distress and require a C-Section. The caveat is that insurance companies rarely cover home births and midwives because they think it is crock and the hospitals are part of the institution that shun natural delivery.

4. Drugs and other interventions ruin the natural bonding experience - The film listed the type of drugs they typically use in a hospital and what each of those drugs do. One is the epidural, which takes away pain but also slows down contractions, then there is Pitocin, which is used to speed up contractions and causes pain. So the two drugs work against each other and the hospital would keep on adding drugs until the baby comes or the baby is distressed so they have to do a C-Section. It is pretty scary and there were other drugs used in the past that caused erupted uteruses and babies without arms and legs. The body itself naturally produces hormones that make the birthing process easier and less painful and these artificial drugs really screw it up.

Despite the film having scenes of several extremely explicit home births, it made me less afraid of having a baby because the births seemed less painful and stressful than what is usually shown in TV. In one woman's birth she just seemed to lay back and sigh and moan a bit and then her baby slipped out into her tub. Then her older child came by and touched the baby and said "eww" like it is extremely natural and cool. There wasn't any crazy screaming or large amounts of blood covering the sheets and the whole experience seemed beautiful and calm. The film's message is that women should have a choice to have a natural birth, and it is completely safe as long as it is planned well and the woman doesn't have any complications. If a woman is enduring a high risk pregnancy, the hospital is still recommended. I don't know if I would have a natural home birth because it is still pretty scary to me, and I know my health insurance would cover my hospital care. I will try to refuse all those drugs in the hospital, though, but I don't know what will happen. Anyway, I think a lot of the information presented in this movie made sense, and I will never look at a pregnant woman the same away again. I highly recommend this film, and I think anyone who wants a child in the future should watch it just to see what childbirth is really like.