Actress and former talk show host shares:
Actress and former talk show host shares her at-home delivery in new film
By Mike Celizic
TODAYShow.com contributor
updated 9:59 a.m. MT, Thurs., Jan. 10, 2008
When Ricki Lake was giving birth six years ago to her second son, Owen, she wasn’t thinking about ever sharing the video taken of the joyous event with the public. If she had considered that possibility, she said with a laugh Thursday on TODAY, things would have been different.
“I would have had better lighting, I would have removed the shampoo bottles, and I would have worn a top,” she quipped.
The “birth experience,” as she calls it, ended up in her new documentary, “The Business of Being Born,” which debuted on Wednesday to positive reviews.
The film follows the actress and former talk show host as she decides to have the delivery at home attended by a midwife and also documents other births, both at home and in hospital birthing centers.
It’s already stirring controversy as well as criticism from the medical community, which feels maligned by Lake’s advocacy of giving birth at home, a course chosen by just 1 percent of American women.
“This movie is not about hospitals versus home,” Lake told TODAY’s Ann Curry in New York. “I’m raising some really major questions about the medical system and whether it’s really servicing mothers and babies as well as it could.”
The United States, she said, has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the developed world.
According to “The CIA World Factbook,” Singapore led the world with an infant mortality rate of 2.30 per 1,000 live births, followed by Sweden with a rate of 2.76 and Japan at 2.80. The United States’ rate of 6.37 ranked just 37th, behind South Korea and Cuba and just ahead of Croatia. The highest mortality rate was in Angola, where the rate is 184.44 deaths for every 1,000 births.
“The fact that we have the second-worst infant mortality rate in the developed world is a statistic that I think people need to know about,” she said. “We are the richest country in the world and the technology that we have is amazing today. Women in their 40s and even in their 50s can get pregnant today and carry children and deliver, babies are living at 23 weeks gestation. It’s amazing the strides we’ve made. But in that process, we’ve lost normal birth.”
Lake was still hosting her long-running talk show when she became pregnant and started to research home birth. Her first child, Milo, was born in 1997 with the aid of a midwife in a birth center. Her second, she decided, would be born at home.
“I felt through my second birth — all the research and finding out what I found out — having my baby at home was incredibly empowering,” she said, adding quickly, “Not that the other one wasn’t.”
She also fought off suggestions that she believes that all women should give birth at home.
“I’m not saying women aren’t empowered when they have their epidural, when they have their C-section, and I don’t judge any woman for any choice they make when it comes to their body,” she told Curry. “I just feel like I had information that I felt my friends and people around me didn’t have access to.”
Home births rare in U.S.
Home births and midwives are more common in Japan and Europe than in the United States, where just 8 percent of all births are attended by midwives, most of those in hospital birthing centers.
“Midwives are an amazing profession,” she said. “I think they make amazing sacrifices for women, for their patients.”
Curry noted that critics in the medical community feel that giving birth at home exposes women to unnecessary risks. Indeed, one of the women in “The Business of Being Born,” the film’s director, Abby Epstein, had to be rushed to a hospital while attempting to give birth at home because of a breech delivery.
“I don’t see it as unnecessary risks,” Lake said. “I had a low-risk pregnancy. My midwife was incredibly trained. I think it’s about the consumer, the mom-to-be, the family, to make the best choice for them. I’m not telling them to do what I did. It’s not about that. It’s about doing your homework and caring about the process of birth.”
The film has many scenes of births both at home and in hospitals, including a C-section. The scenes of women giving birth at home are particularly striking. “It’s really important for women today to see how amazing these women are during their birth experience, when they’re completely able to move around and labor on their own. It’s mind-blowing,” Lake said. “The reaction we’re getting is mostly extremely positive.”
The Business of Being Born Web Site
© 2007 MSNBC Interactive
Category Healthy Pregnancy
Unassisted Childbirth Testimonial 1 – The Ojala Family
This is a new catagory on my blog. I am taking testimonials from families who have moved from hospital birth to unassisted childbirth. Here is the first from Jamine Ojala:
This video is available on My Share Page at One True Media.
Continue reading “Unassisted Childbirth Testimonial 1 – The Ojala Family”
Healthy Families Make A Healthy World!
Good Morning America Story on Unassisted Childbirth
I’ve missed blogging too much these past three months, so have decided to come back, well rested and ready to participate in the various discussions around my favorite topics.
Good Morning America has prepared an excellent print article for their web site. The comment section is roaring, and tomorow they plan to play this video during the second hour of the morning broadcast during the turning point section of the show.
Jenny Hatch
Continue reading “Good Morning America Story on Unassisted Childbirth”
Healthy Families Make A Healthy World!
Current Birth Stats, The Business of Being Born, and CYTOTEC DANGER!!!
Preliminary Birth Data from the CDC for 2006.
Birth Report by States: Table D has all of the various section rates for 2005 and 2006
2005 Final Report Birth Stats from the CDC! C-Section rate at an all time high.
I was able to watch Rikki Lakes The Business of Being Born recently and strongly recomend every birthing mother watch it with her partner. Variety Review of the Movie.
More information about Cytotec. Read the comments attached to this post as well. Really good information.
Jenny Hatch
PS Cytotec is in fact the standard of care in terms of inductions in the hospital.
Healthy Families Make A Healthy World!
Amazing Home Birth VBAC! Go Mama Go!!!
Read this amazing birth story posted on the Mothering discussion boards just yesterday:
QUOTE:
“After doing this I feel like I can do anything I put my heart in to, it is amazing to feel like that again, after my Cesarean Section with Gabriel, I did not feel like myself, a lot was taken away from me that day, not just the chance to push out a baby, but a lot of my ‘self’ was taken, a lot of my fire and spirit along with most of my confidence. I had been banking it all up since August 2006 when I had resolved to take control of my birthing, putting it all in layaway a little at a time, and I finally got it all back the night I had Violet, with interest! Ross says I even look different. I definitely feel different, I feel redeemed and proud of myself for accomplishing so much in such a short time, I also feel like I absolutely must help to spread this feeling to as many women as I can.
I know that unassisted birth is not ideal for everyone, but for me, it is the only way I feel I could safely and securely give birth; for me, any interference at all, ‘good’ or ‘bad’, would have ruined my Violet’s birth.
I respect the need for well trained obstetricians in hospitals or operating rooms, in the cases when medical care is prudent; so it isn’t like I have something against doctors or hospitals, it is just, I personally do not need all that to give birth. I love and respect the work that midwives do, their wisdom and their dedication to a profession that is really unappreciated by our society at large; I have every intention on training as a midwife in the future when my children are a little older, not requiring my undivided attention and are no longer breastfeeding, so it is not as if I have something ‘against’ midwives, I simply would never have been comfortable being myself in front of a midwife, even if she was a friend, I would never have really been able to let go and just birth. I know that for sure.
The simple truth is this: Ross is the only person who really knows what I am all about, he really knows what I need and want and he can do it without disturbing me or even without thinking, and in the moment of birthing, that is the most important thing, I think. We were the best midwives I could ask for. A great number of couples do not have the sort of relationship conductive to unassisted birth, and some do; a great number of women do not have a personality conductive to birthing alone, and again, some do. I had no real desire to be all alone, I wanted Ross to be with me, idle but present, and that is what he was; it was perfect. For us.
I think we in the birthing ‘community’ need to realize everyone has individual needs and desires, some need and desire to be completely alone, some want a midwife, some want their mothers, some want an obstetrician and an epidural and we all need to respect and support those needs and wants.
All women need to have choices, many varied choices that they can choose from freely without worry of people thinking they are ‘crazy’ or ‘weak’ or ‘radical’. I felt the need to keep our plans for an unassisted birth a secret among many of our family members and friends until after the fact because I could not deal with the fearful, rude and even downright snarky comments and ‘looks’ during my pregnancy if I were to be peaceful and happy, which has since made me resolve as long as a woman has educated herself with accurate truthful information about all of her choices I have no place thinking (or saying) anything but supportive things, even if she has decided to have an elective Cesarean Section operation after being fully informed of risks and benefits.
I think we could all resolve to make sure women are well educated about their options for birth.
It is in our hands, we have the ability to change things for the better, if only we would act to do so. We must let the well educated woman choose what is best for her and her family in birth, and then just let her choice be, whether or not we think it is the ‘right’ choice; it will make for happier, easier pregnancies and a much more simple kind of birth.”
ICAN Online
Jasmines Email Address: shegothipslikecinderella@gmail.com
Pictures used with permission. Please feel free to contact Jasmine to talk to her about her empowering birth!
I completely endorse and applaud this mother for her courage, focus, and intentions.
Jenny Hatch
