Last night was our doula group "date" for seeing The Business of Being Born, and it was a great success on many levels. The movie itself is very well done in terms of editing and cinematography but also in terms of content. It touched on so many issues relating to the modern birth experience in the US, including:
safety of birth location
maternal and infant mortality rates
health insurance
malpractice insurance
training and belief systems of care providers
empowerment of women
cultural fear of birth
medical and midwifery models of care
It also did a great job of following the human stories of several women who chose non-conventional births and their reasons for doing so. I do hope that the film is going to be released to DVD because I would love to have it for loan to my clients and students.
It was also tremendously fun to watch the film in an audience primarily composed of doulas and others who work in the birth field. There was lots of clapping and laughing (the film was surprisingly funny as well) - hopefully we didn't completely overwhelm the other audience members, several of whom were pregnant. A post-show dinner of sushi (the Heart Attack roll at Jeju - you must try it, people!) was a perfect way to finish the night. And perhaps best of all my previous email was lucrative in that I was able to draw out some previous students and their babies (who are always so much older than my mind thinks they should be). I hope we can do something like it again in the future!
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