List Price: $27.98You Pay Only: $24.99 You Save: $2.99 (11%)Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: DVD
Brand: LAKE,RICKI
EAN: 0794043120787
Format: Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
Label: New Line Home Video
Manufacturer: New Line Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: New Line Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: May 06, 2008
Running Time: 84 minutes
Sales Rank: 1814
Studio: New Line Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: 2007
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Genre: Documentary
Rating: UN
Release Date: 6-MAY-2008
Media Type: DVD
Amazon.com:
Is it conceivable that in the United States, profit is increasingly driving the business of birthing--sometimes at the expense of the best possible outcome for mothers and babies? Should birth be viewed and treated as a natural process or a potential medical emergency? This documentary, produced by Ricki Lake and directed by Abby Epstein, opines that money and fear are changing the way Americans give birth, and not necessarily for the better. Beginning with shocking statistics that the United States has the second-worst newborn death rate in the developed world and one of the highest maternal mortality rates in industrialized countries, the film presents interviews with medical professionals including Dr. Jacques Moritz, OB/GYN from St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital; Dr. Michel Odent, OB/GYN researcher; and Masden Wagner, MD, former Director for Women's and Children's Health at the World Health Organization. Each expert paints a dismal picture of American birthing and emphasizes the frequent overuse of medical procedures in what are otherwise potentially normal deliveries. Stressing the prevalent use of midwives in birthing in other developed nations (70% of births are attended by midwives in Europe and Japan, versus 8% in the U.S.), the documentary then follows Cara Muhlhahn, a certified nurse midwife in New York City, as she attends a variety of home births. The footage is candid and sometimes very graphic, showing various home-delivery methods, including water birth. Interviews with Cara and her clients emphasize their shared philosophy on birthing as a normal life process that, when attended by a caring and well-trained midwife, can be both empowering and exhilarating. Though a midwife is often characterized as a supportive, but medically untrained birth attendee, the film dispels that stereotype, stressing a good midwife's solid training and knowledge of when it's appropriate to seek outside medical intervention. Key in every birth is a commitment to doing what's best for mother and baby, regardless of pre-planned agendas. The filmmaker's lament is that hospitals and doctors often too quickly advocate medical intervention in the interest of saving time and avoiding potential litigation. While unquestionably advocating midwifery over hospital birthing, this documentary presents solid expert opinions, concrete facts and statistics, and anecdotal experiences of both mothers and midwives that are crucial in making an informed decision about the use of midwifery in birthing as well as enlightening as to the current state of birthing in the United States. --Tami Horiuchi
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - EVERY WOMAN NEEDS TO SEE THIS
I've been present at four hospital births and the experience left me convinced to have a home birth for myself and child. This doc presents World Health Org. wisdom and in-the-trenches experience. Watch it with your heart and mind wide open and you can't help see that North America is on its way to a crisis in terms of our relationship to the most natural experience in the world.
Way to go Ricki and Abby. Noble work. Essential work. Life-enriching work.
Rating:  - Something every parent or parent-to-be should see
I LOVED this video! It is so important for every mother to see. It's so good!
Rating: - Disturbing, shocking . . . TRUE!
I'm still wiping the tears from my eyes as a type this . . . . I'm elated, enraged, encouraged and most importantly, I feel empowered!
I just watched "The Business of Being Born" (I signed up for Netflix just to see this film, lol)
This film was disturbingly accurate, and even though I've yet to give birth, I was moved to tears: the births shown (including Ricki's) were absolutly what birth can and should be. For those naysayers that think this is just "proppaganda": well there were many experts on boths sides of the fence in this film. Maturnity care in this country is broken and this film exposes this truth without demonizing Dr's. It was refreshing to see the dr's in this film talk openly about the current state of hospital policy, interventions, etc. I don't think TBOBB was trying to endorse home-birth per se, I think the gist was to bring the facts out in the open and show women that they do have a choice. NEVER in the film did anyone say "home or hospital is the BEST for everyone" No one said intervention is bad, everyone acknowledged that things can happen. This film should be required for every medical student.
I wonder why ACOG and the AMA took such offense at this film? Why because it was true? . . . .or because it may help women realize that they do have other options? I think it is both.
My favorite part of the film was when one of the experts said: "IF you want to humanize birth, get the hell out of the hosiptal." Priceless! ... Read More
Rating: - eye-opening documentary
*SPOILERS*
According to statistics, the infant mortality rate in the United States exceeds that of virtually every other nation in the industrialized world. The U.S. is also the only place in which far more women give birth in hospitals than at home under the care of a professional midwife. The documentary "The Business of Being Born" sees a connection between those two facts.
Executive producer Ricki Lake first conceived of this film after she delivered her first baby in the hospital and then felt cheated of the potentially beautiful and meaningful experience a home birth might have provided. With the aid of director Abby Epstein, Lake has gathered together a group of women, couples, midwives and physicians who, through their own personal experiences and/or studies on the matter, help to provide evidence for her case that, for the large majority of women, delivering at home is preferable, on both a practical and spiritual level, to delivering in a hospital. Lake has even allowed herself to be filmed in the process of giving birth to her second child at home.
This is an eye-opening and informative movie that admittedly provides really only one side to the issue. But it makes a pretty convincing case for that side and certainly gets the audience thinking. First, it offers a number of startling statistics, the prime one being that roughly one third of all babies born in America are now delivered through Caesarian Section, a procedure that is classified ... Read More
Rating: - Very informative
This DVD was very informative, for my wife and I expecting our 1st child it really encouraged us to explore all of our options, and not just conform to what we "should" when choosing a birthing method.
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