Business of Being Born
My good friend is a nursing student with plans of eventually becoming a midwife. This semester her and her class have been discussing obstetrics and witnessing live hospital births. She herself was born at home and is a huge advocate for the cause. She's been butting heads with her professor over homebirth, natural birth, circumcision, and breastfeeding. She's been so fed up with what is being accepted as fact to the rest of the class that she wants to have a showing of "The Business of Being Born" at this hipster party hall type thing for her classmates and anyone else willing to come. Obviously, she's not charging or anything, just wants to get people educated.
I'm the other half of this project. I didn't have a homebirth nor do I have much exposure to it (except for what hipmama has provided), but have become a huge advocate for it since my son's birth and realizing that there were other, more woman-centered options out there for birthing that no one informed me about. So, I'm in charge of any other stuff we might want to include in this presentation. If any of you mamas know of anywhere I can get some more information, or can think of other resources I can provide the nursing students, I'd love the help. Also, if you just have any ideas on how to make this thing more awesome, I'd love to hear it. I'm sort of bogged down with school right now, but my friend needs to get this done before the semester's end and we both need all the help we can get.
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we just did a showing in my town last month and it was great! nothing fancy, a few booths, midwives, support groups (ican, lll and asac) and child-centered businesses to drum up buzz. check out the business of being born website for info (the dvd is due for public release in a couple of weeks) as well as facebook groups that have popped up in support of the film. are there any midwives in the area who would be willing to come and participate in a discussion panel after the show? how about contacting local chapters of ican and lll?
wishing you the best of luck on this- its a great film and one worth organizing an event for!
YES! I second the suggestion of having a midwife or two there to discuss the film after it is shown.
A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song. - Chinese Proverb
and she said that you guys dont have any midwives working up there?? that sucks!!
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mega suck.
dh and i are trying for a third and in touching base with my midwife was told that she no longer takes out of town clients, so our plans of a homebirth this next time around are looking slim to none. instead we have our choice of trying a vbac at a hospital with a 50% c/s rate or again driving an hour and a half to hang out in a hotel room. (not to mention the travel back and forth with 2 kids by myself.) its absolutely archaic if you ask me.
on the up side i am totally motivated to start raising awareness in th community again- helping with petitions, rallies and such. living in one of the richest areas in the world it is a mysoginistic slap in the face that these services for women and children and so lacking.
i thought it was bad enough just trying to find a midwife and being able to pay them here. i couldnt imagine not even having that option.
its good that you want to be a part of raising the awareness. thats what we need. but i dont know how much good it'll do with the current government.
good luck!
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i saw it last night.
I wanted to have a homebirth but it didn't work out (super premature baby with huge health complications for both of us) and we got the very very medical birth instead (but it was ultimately fine with me because we are both alive and well).
But yeah, you are more likely to live and be happy and healthy and have a happy healthy baby if you are at home with a trained support person than if you go to a hospital. Unless you are one of those crazy high riskers, like me.
This is awesome! I'm working with a group of sister-friends in my community on putting together a benefit screening of the film. I would suggest gathering some statistics - both local and national - on the c-birth rate vs. births attended by midwives. I will send what information we are compiling your way when I get my hands on it.
Also, be prepared... a couple of criticisms on the film that may come up... 1.) the midwife in the film doesn't wear gloves. This is actually something that will be addressed right away by a midwife at our conference because it bugs her. Yes, there are times when a midwife doesn't wear gloves - birth is moving fast and there is not time to put them on, they're useless in water births, she is attending a friend's birth. and 2.) the director of the film, Abby, has a baby that is not developing properly and Ricky Lake is the one who mentions how small Abby looks for how far along she is. BOTH the doctor and midwife missed it. BUT… this is not unusual. I forget what the fetal developmental delay is termed, but it is common for an OB to miss it. Every woman grows differently and can appear to be of “normal” size or measure at normal size. Just want to give you the heads up on these two things so you are prepared for the possible attacks.
I am VERY interested in hearing how that audience takes the film. Please let me know with a blog update or PM if you think about it. When are you showing the film so I make sure I get some more info to you in time?
A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song. - Chinese Proverb
fyi- may 5th is international day of the midwife. maybe you could tie it into that somehow?
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We're doing the presentation on May 4th, so we have very little time (we sort of thought of this on a whim a while back but procrastinated about it until now). Any more information would be AWESOME, but like a said, it's not very far away now, so if you can't get it to me in time, it's okay.
Thanks for all the tips. I'll definitely keep you updated. I've already got an e-mail sent out to a local midwife and I've gathered up a bit of research, but not much. I'm really looking forward to this...it's the first time in a while that I've actually been a big part of educating my rather close-minded community.