TMA 273 - The Business of Being Born (2008)
2:16 PM
This documentary explores hospital
births vs home births. Though I am not married or at all close to starting my own
family yet, giving birth is something to which I have given a fair amount of thought. We are a hospital
birth family by tradition. In fact, my four sisters and I, my mom, and my mom’s mom were
all born in the same hospital. For me, home births and midwives have
kind of a “hippie” connotation. My opinion previous to seeing this movie was that home births were for bra-less, yoga-doing, essential
oil-using women. I believe that modern medical technology is there for our
comfort and safety, and by all means, we should use it. This film revealed what
home births are really like, and it made me consider the fact that I have been
raised with a prejudice against them.
The film definitely tries to make
hospital-birthing look like a shady business. It interviews doctors and nurses
admitting that they haven’t ever really seen a full natural birth before, and that
they didn’t go through formal training to do it. There is also one sequence
where they edited together different doctors and nurses describing all the
drugs that are used in childbirth and saying, “we’ll just give her more PIT” or
which is a drug used to speed up labor. They also show really creepy archival
footage of drugging pregnant mothers in torture chamber-like hospital rooms. These interviews and scenes were juxtaposed in quite a frightening way, as it sets up the doctors to
look inexperienced and makes the audience feel negatively toward hospital
births.
To show the counterpoint, they
interview several different professional midwives. They describe their
experience, how they treat their patients, and the equipment they use and are
trained to use. They also show several home births, during which the mothers
all seem relatively calm. I can’t think of a time during the film when it
talked about the risks or dangers of giving birth in your own home without a
doctor present. They also talk about how many midwiferies are starting to go
out of business because people are uninformed about home births and are afraid
of the pain, so they just automatically go to hospitals without considering
another option. Hence the title; being born really is a business for hospitals. At one point it even called birth an
“industry.” One sequence in the film showed a midwife closing down her practice
because she wasn’t able to stay afloat financially. After setting up these
midwives as the heroes of the film, it definitely made me feel sorry for them
and have a hint of animosity toward hospitals. I felt that the film tried
strongly to convince its audience that home birthing is cheaper, safer, and a
more intimate and empowering experience.
One interesting aspect of the film
is that the producer and director were participants in the film. The producer had given birth at home before, and the director was
actually pregnant herself and was going through this process of deciding
whether to do a home birth or not during the course of the film. I can
appreciate that they were both passionate about this particular issue, and that
they made a compelling film about it. In the end, the director has some complications with her pregnancy and has to have a C-section at a hospital. When she talks about it, she doesn't seem angry or like her documentary as ruined. I admired that the story arc of her pregnancy and hospital birth was included nonetheless. If it were me, though, I would have tried
to be more fair to hospitals and talked about the negative sides of home
birth as well. Nonetheless, I think it was a successful film for the most part because it made me as a
viewer want to do more research on my own. It shed light on a subject that I
was quite ignorant about previously. My eyes were definitely opened to the possibility of home birth being a good alternative to hospital birth. However, I know better than to believe everything one film says, especially a film that so obviously leans a certain way and presented its information in a persuasive manner. This film was a really good example to me of a documentary that tried to claim that style equals truth, when really it included only what helped its cause, and manipulated its gathered information to create an antagonist. I could see viewers of this film believing blindly what the documentary claimed, purely because it was a "documentary" so therefore it tells the complete "truth." It is important to consult many resources when seeking for the truth on an issue.
4 comments
Hey, Jessica! Cool post. The first thing I thought of when I read that the doctors being interviewed had never witnessed a "full natural birth" was Neil's pitch about the mechanical birth simulator hidden in the bowels of the McKay Building. There is something cold and inhuman about some of the ways our society tries to preserve humanity, huh? But, like you said, there are dangers present in "natural" medical care that women who take the film's message to heart should research thoroughly and that a more balanced documentary would have included. However, balanced or not, a documentary should never be taken at face value; a viewer's decision to act on a film's message should be informed by multiple sources and empirical data.
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen this documentary, but from your blog post it appears the filmmakers went to great lengths to vilify a system that has helped bring millions of lives into the world. Yes, our healthcare system has its imperfections, but it means well and means to help people get well--a fact hidden beneath subjective angles and some heavy-handed editing, perhaps?
I’m the same as you, Jessica. Myself, two of my three sisters, and several of my cousins were all born in the same hospital. My youngest sister was born in a hospital down the street. So pivotal to our life stories are these buildings that we refer to them in conversation as “the hospital where I was born” or “the hospital where Kristen was born”, instead of by their real names. My image of midwifery was a little different, as I thought of “home births” as what happened when the baby came before it was planned and caught you off guard, or when you didn’t have enough money to go to a hospital. In retrospect, however, I can completely envision the people in my life who are interested in homeopathy and acupuncture and herbs as being potential proponents of midwifery.
ReplyDeleteI was also quite disturbed by the depiction of hospitals as profitable torture chambers where drugs are the answer to everything, despite their negative side effects. This was in stark contrast to the depiction of home birth as you described: an experience of ease and safety and joy, having your child delivered naturally in your own home. The film’s bias was clear, and very little was said about the risks of home birth. And the little criticism that was mentioned I feel was dismissed quite easily by the film’s narrative.
Maybe it is just because I am a film student and have sat through so many lectures and documentaries, but I disagree that the heavily weighted point of view will lend itself complete credibility in the minds of its audience. I feel much more critical of this documentary’s facts and information because it is so heavy-handed in its message. Because the pro-midwifery bias is continuously reinforced, I was able to remind myself that the film had an agenda, and was able to avoid getting swept up in the euphoria of the mother holding her newborn baby in the bathtub, although it was an incredibly tender scene. Like I said, that might just be the Benjamin and Brad voices talking in my head.
I too would definitely consider a home birth after seeing this film. I would need more research of course, and I feel that with my health I would probably end up going to a hospital, but the film definitely brought up good points and made home birth look like an extremely positive experience.
Like you, Jessica, I also grew up with a prejudice against home births. My mom was a nurse and I spent a lot of time at her hospital growing up. Because of the one sided nature of the arguments, I only felt manipulated, and did not feel compelled to agree with any of the arguments because I just felt like I was being coerced to agree. I think that if there had been a more fair exploration of the pros and cons of both natural and hospital births, then I would have been more inclined to agree with their arguments. I think that for me, this documentary went so overboard for home births that it was not effective for me. It just felt like I was being yelled at, and it did not make me want to agree with their argument.
ReplyDeleteMy voice in your head would never tell you to not enjoy a tender scene of a mother holding her just-born baby Ashley! : ) I'm glad it appears this film exposed you all to some new ideas--it's good to allow a documentary to challenge our prejudices, and good to remember that doesn't *always* mean it's being unfair either.
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