Tools
Watching a birth—whether live or filmed, but let's just say filmed for the purposes of this review—is a watershed moment in life. Birth is the most dramatic of commonplaces. It never happens in sleep, like death. It never loses its power, even if you see birth after birth. This is not to say that it's glorious and mothers are magical angels and life is beautiful amen namaste. Birth is an epically complicated subject, and Birth Story: Ina May Gaskin and the Farm Midwives, a new documentary, mostly does justice to it.
Gaskin is the world's most famous midwife. She was a caravanning hippie who returned to San Francisco to find Altamont rather than the Summer of Love she'd left behind. So the Gaskins and their caravan decided to go to Tennessee and set up a farm commune. The women had already been helping each other deliver their babies on the road. Now they would do it at the Farm, which opened in 1971 and is still going strong, training new midwives and delivering new babies.
Stranger Personals
Gaskin and her fellow midwives are likable people—the best kind of eccentrics: no-nonsense ones—with none seeming to need the attention of a camera whatsoever. Directors Sara Lamm and Mary Wigmore do a good job interweaving new and historical footage of the founding midwives' halcyon days. There are so many birthing scenes that they lose the ooh-a-naked-lady effect, a great public service in itself. (Idea: Everyone should look at a naked lady doing something powerful and nonsexual five times a day. Then let's see how many women get into Congress.)
Gaskin is nondogmatic but wants two things: to lower the C-section rate, and to spread the word about safe breech delivery. We see a breech delivery, butt-first, in the film.
What we don't see much of are the Farm's struggles and conflicts. Also, the final birthing scene is incredible—the woman gives birth by candlelight, in a tub, with not an iota of assistance from any of the midwives—but I'd hate for it to make women think they're doing something wrong if it doesn't go like this. Gaskin's philosophy is simple: relax. But in the force field of childbirth, that's got to be the hardest thing of all to do. 
http://www.babysteals.com.au/
But since you've called me out: I'll admit that, both times my wife was in labor, I DID feel pretty invested in what happened both to mother and child, and participated in the conversation (not really "argument") of what should happen next, as the labor proceeded. Creepy, no?
7
@2: how many children do you have? Where did you deliver your children ex-hospital, etc.? And, FYI- your stats aren't backed by reality (''Homebirth can be deadly''). The rest of the world and their live birth rates/maternal death rates disagree with you.
Do more research, like stats from the W.H.O., the movie 'The Business of Being Born', 'Pushed', and then you can choose to do whatever you like with your vagina.
And, um, @1: I'm happy that your family was saved by an emergency procedure.
Again, no one's denying that c-secs have a place in medicine. And, you can do whatever you want with your vagina, as well. What? You don't have one? Oh, then here's my next suggestion:PLEASE STAY OUT OF THE CONVERSATION OF WHAT WOMEN ''SHOULD'' DO WITH THEIR BODIES. I'm getting damn tired of guys thinking, for some strange reason, that they have any place in the argument of women and their bodies, including birth, including c-sections.
6
That being said, I'm a healthy c-section kid, so is my brother, and so are many of my kid's playmates. I think what's more important is that people stop judging women for how they give birth and be more supportive of pre- and post-natal support programs, both private, public, and in the workplace.
5
http://www.washingtonmidwives.org/for-hc…
Birth is an inherently risky process. What is interesting is the RISE of the maternal mortality rate in our country in recent decades, along with the increase in medical interventions. Something to think critically about.
Of course medical technology saves lives when needed, and it can be dangerous and risky when over used.
Things can go wrong very quickly and appropriate medical care can mean the difference between life and death, or lifelong disability.
Midwives cannot provide that are in a home or "farm" setting. They know this, but continue to promote risky home births because it is their livelihood.
Check out this blog, by a Harvard trained obstetrician, for more on homebirth and midwives: http://www.skepticalob.com/
It doesn't always go like that. And when it doesn't, a C-section can save two lives. The three people I love most in the world are all around today thanks to C-sections.
RSS
Twitter
Comments (13) RSS