Last night hubby and I watched The Business of Being Born because our doula recommended it. It was actually much less biased than I thought it would be. Basically it shows the births that Ricki Lake, producer, and Abby Epstein, director, had while filming the documentary and questions the necessity of a lot of medical practices such as the widespread use of Pitocin for augmenting labor, etc. It also shows several midwives attending home births and just explaining the benefits of using a midwife if you are a low risk pregnancy. One thing I learned is that around the world, even in developed countries in Europe, midwives are the standard and usually higher risk pregnancies go to doctors for their prenatal care.
My favorite thing about the movie was that it was constantly stressing the concept of informed consent. I truly feel that that is missing from most births. It seems that people will just go along with whatever their doctors say without questioning it. I'm not saying you need to interrogate your doctor and his motives, but more women need to be asking questions like "Why do you feel this drug/procedure is necessary?" "Are there any alternatives?" "What would happen if we waited?"
The only thing that kept irking at me during the movie, was that while they were against women taking pain medications and Pitocin because of the negative side effets they can have on labor and the baby, they never said anything about contraception. As I see it, using contraception for 10, 20, or even 30 years (and taking it while breastfeeding) is probably going to have more of a lasting impact on your baby than taking a shot of Pitocin after labor or even having an epidural.
Anywho, I liked that it didn't make me feel like i'm a failure or just giving into "the man" by seeing a doctor or having a c-section. The director, Abby, actually ended up having a c-section during the movie since her little boy was breech and refused to turn, even during labor. Since Certified Nurse Midwives aren't supposed to be delivering breech babies she was transferred to a hospital to get the little guy out.
Having been to both a midwife and a doctor I have to say I liked the care I received with the midwife better. I really like that they focus on what is normal while doctors tend to focus on things that are going wrong. Granted, I've now had complications in both pregnancies so I don't qualify to have a midwife right now, but God willing I will get to have 1 normal boring pregnancy and birth!!
Oh I almost forgot, the other thing that made me kinda sad is that there really are no options for women...for the typical woman your choices are what pain medication you'd like during labor. Most homebirths cost between $3000 and $6000 and insurance won't cover it and most families just can't afford that.
3 comments:
I'll have to check that out now! I'm a big supporter of midwife births even though I've never had one myself. Unfortunately, they are also tough to find these days! The fact that I was looking for one that could deliver in the hospital made it trickier. I just like hospitals. I know, it's weird.
That is so funny that you watched that! I am taking a documentary class and for the final we have to write a paper on a documentary, and I found this documentary last week and decided I should write my paper on it! Crazy!
Hospitals are not a bad thing (I've learned) and considering you're an RN I'd expect you to be comfy there. There are some hospitals that have a birth center attended by midwives and they transfer you if you have a complication. I wish insurance companies didn't make it so tough, though. We'd love to have a home birth but they range from $3k-$6K since insurance won't cover it.
So far there is only ONE accredited stand alone birth center in CA run by Certified Nurse Midwives. It's the place I tried to go to have Ella. They are always having a hard time dealing with insurance companies who don't want to pay :(. It'd be great to have more of these centers that have Certified Midwives, medical equipment, a homey environment, and easy access to a hospital just in case. I dunno, it seemed to be a happy middle ground between a doctor/hospital and a homebirth.
Post a Comment