A couple of weeks ago my pregnant bridesmaid mentioned that she watched the documentary “The Business of Being Born.” I had never heard about it, so I went online to look up the synopsis. The Blockbuster review said that it was a good movie for people who are thinking about getting pregnant in addition to those women that were already pregnant. Although CP and I aren’t trying just yet, I figured that he would be out of town last weekend so I would check it out.
I wasn’t quite prepared for watching women give birth on screen. I mean, other than the movie “Knocked Up” which had the one scene where Katherine Heigl’s character is giving birth and they show the baby’s head start to pop out, I haven’t seen a birth since watching “The Miracle of Birth” in sex ed in middle school. The fact that these women were nude and giving birth in tubs in their home was quite surprising. It was quite different from the scenes they showed of women giving birth in hospitals.
I’ll be honest. When we heard about our friends in NYC that gave birth last month at home, I was like, “huh? How does that even work? What if something happens?* Why would you want to do that?” After this movie though? The whole using the midwife as opposed to a doctor and giving birth in a midwife birthing center sounds appealing. I am obviously getting ahead of myself, but it’s never too early to start doing your homework.
Most pregnancies (according to the movie…would have to do more research to verify) are normal and go according to plan. No drugs, no C-sections, etc. needed. So while I don’t think that I would like to have a baby at home (who would clean stuff like the afterbirth up?), the women that had midwifes seemed calmer in spite of all of the pain. Being in control of the whole birthing process sounds a lot more appealing than a doctor pushing drugs or pushing a c-section so that you can get the birth over with.
Now this movie was obviously skewed towards using midwives and home births. But after discussing the movie with CP, I would think that we would do more research into the topic when the time to have kids gets closer. In the end it is what we would feel comfortable with.
*Actually, in the movie one of the filmmakers gets pregnant, starts going into labor early and the baby is breech. They end up bringing her to the hospital and she has to have a C-section. She was planning on having a home birth, but it just shows that if something does happen, you do have a back-up plan.
3 comments:
Each pregnancy and mom to be is different and you have to make the best decision for your helth and that of the baby.
My matron of honor is due in a few weeks and it is a high risk delivery and all the plans that she and her doctors had changed last week and she is beside herself.
The best thing is to be knowledgeable about the all the possibilities.
I'm almost embarrassed to admit this, given the fact that I've ranted and raved about NOT! BEING! READY! ... BUT...I've thought a lot about it, and I want to give birth at a hospital, but with a midwife and without drugs...you know, when I'm ready. I believe in the fact that our bodies were made to do this, and we shouldn't need tons of medical intervention. But as for having it at a hospital, aside from the whole cleanup angle you've pointed out (I so agree!) is that I'd like the reassurance that if something were to go wrong, I'm already where I need to be to get it taken care of.
If you want a midwife and you do it in Denver, we should definitely talk. I LOVE my midwife practice (though perhaps I'll feel differently after actually being pregnant?) and they are a great balance of natural birth advocates while still in a hospital setting.
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