Ricki Lake Birth Documentary: The Business of Being Born

[BellyBelly]

Just thought I would share the trailer for you: The Business of Being Born

I saw this at the Homebirth Conference this weekend, where Ricki Lake, Abby and Sheila Kitzinger were present and spoke (they sat in front of me oOoooh!)

Definitely, ALL women and their partners need to see this. While this is US based, it's not very far removed from Australia at all. In fact one big difference - our c/s rate is higher than theirs. But the attitudes and everything else you see is EXACTLY what is going on here in Australia.

Screening times/dates removed as no longer relevant.

You can now purchase a copy from BellyBelly - we are distributors of this DVD in Australia.

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[Artechim]

Ricki Lake was on one of the morning shows the other day about her birthing doco. Australia really does have a crap maternity system, I hope it raises some awareness and helps to get the system improved. I am so glad I will have my next baby in NZ where you get the same midwife during the entire pregnancy and birth (and it is all free).

[MistyFying]

Looks very interesting...

[BellyBelly]

Some media feedback below. I think this really puts it into perspective that it's not just women with crazy and outrageous ideas having homebirth and advocating midwives. Shame it has to resort to a celebrity getting out there and doing this, but hopefully people will stop looking at homebirthing women as freaks. George Negus was there - they had a homebirth. Elle McPherson, Hugo Weaving - some great celebs! It's such a beautiful event.



Ricki Lake just the ticket for talk

Peter Ker
Melbourne Age - November 3, 2007

THE award for the most unlikely participation in the election campaign has surely been won after US talk show host Ricki Lake appeared with a NSW Senate candidate in Sydney yesterday.

In Australia to promote her film about women's rights and birthing issues, Ms Lake held a press conference with Justine Caines, a candidate for the What Women Want party.

The party is campaigning on issues important to women, but its desire to improve maternity services provides the link to Ms Lake.

"I do think this is a political issue, this issue of women fighting for their right to choice," Ms Lake said. Her film features her giving birth at home in a bath and investigates women's choice for vaginal birth or caesareans, and whether women get adequate care during childbirth.

Ms Lake said she did not know enough about Australian politics to discuss the outcome of the November 24 election, but threw her support behind Ms Caines.



Ricki Lake confronts audiences in new childbirth doco

Annika Burgess

Live News - 3/11/2007 1:00:00 PM.

American entertainer Ricki Lake is in Sydney promoting her latest fly-on-the-wall documentary, which includes graphic vision of her giving birth to her second son.

After spending 11 years hosting her own talk show, Lake has decided to use her fame to encourage more people to become midwives and for pregnant women to take control.

Lake's film, The Business of Being Born, directed by Abby Epstein, documents experiences of women who give birth at home in the hope to enlighten women and reduce soaring caesarean rates around the world.

Statistics show more than 95 per cent of women in Australia give birth in a hospital and one in three births are by caesarean, higher than the 25 per cent rate in the United States.

Lake, who has been described by New Yorker magazine as the Al Gore of natural births, says her message is clear.

"We're not anti-doctors, we're not anti-hospitals. We're against the system that is in place that is not benefitting mothers and babies the way it should be.²

³When I told my mother she said, 'Are you crazy - why are you putting your baby at risk? You're out of your mind'. It's an uphill battle, but I when I gave birth to Owen I felt like I had saved the world."

Hopefully for Lake, the message of the film won¹t be overshadowed by the controversial scene where audiences see her vagina, footage she said was never initially intended to be seen by the public.

"I never intended for any of that to be seen by the public because I was only documenting the birth so I could look at it later and remember how I felt," she said.

"I had a lot of negative comments [about the vagina shot] but when people actually see the film, they realise it's not gratuitous and you don't see much anyway because it's underwater. I wouldn't say I look particularly beautiful - but it is a beautiful moment."

Macquarie National News



Ricki Lake brings childbirth doco down under

ABC PM - Friday, 2 November , 2007 18:42:00
Reporter: Paula Kruger

MARK COLVIN: Having a cause has long been a popular accessory for American celebrities. Some speak out about Darfur, others about the homeless.

Today the actress and former talk-show host Ricki Lake brought her cause to Sydney when promoting her new documentary The Business of Being Born.

It's a film that attempts to do for natural childbirth what An Inconvenient Truth did for the climate change debate.

Given that the Federal Election is just three weeks away there was a political angle too, with Ms Lake throwing her support behind the new political party What Women Want.

Paula Kruger reports.

(Theme tune from The Ricki Lake Show)

PAULA KRUGER: She was once the queen of tacky talk shows.

RICKI LAKE: We are hypnotising our guests to help them find true love.

PAULA KRUGER: In this episode, audience members under hypnosis were given an orgasm with just a handshake. Then there was the program on 'duelling drag queen divas', 'extreme breast makeovers', and who could forget the one titled 'we love hot half naked men'.

Well, Ricki Lake is now lifting the sheet on childbirth and telling Australian women what she says they should know.

She is in the country promoting her documentary The Business of Being Born, a film being promoted as the inconvenient truth of childbirth.

The film follows the pregnancies and births of Ricki Lake and the film's producer, Abby Epstein. The pair say many women aren't informed enough about the benefits of natural childbirth and home births.

RICKI LAKE: Really, we're advocating choice. You know, that we are not junking women. You know, many of my friends, one friend in particular - my friend Jane, I tried to get to her, I told her, "look what I know, read this book". You know, she had three elective C-sections, and you know, I don't judge her. I mean, you know, I say what I have to say, and the movie speaks for itself. It's really about educating and empowering women.

ABBY EPSTEIN: For me, I think, when I watched Ricki's birth on video, which is in the film, I swear to God in my life, I never knew that birth could look like that. she wasn't screaming her head off, she wasn't screaming at all. She looked so sexy and beautiful and powerful, like she just looked powerful, like this goddess.

PAULA KRUGER: A goddess is an interesting way of putting it.

In the same way that literature describing the development of a baby often compares its size to items you'd find in a green grocer. It starts off as a pea, then a grape or a lime, and at the end of it all, you've got a big watermelon.

Now when some women give birth naturally, and just remember that watermelon for a moment, they may not be feeling like an empowered goddess, and no number of scented candles or big warm bathtubs are going to change that.

But the case for natural childbirth isn't about candles and bathtubs, according to Justine Caines, who is the NSW Senate candidate for the What Women Want party.

The party that brought Ms Lake to Australia halfway through the federal election campaign.

Ms Caines, who has given birth to six children, says it is all about the continuity of care for Australian mothers.

JUSTINE CAINES: The point is that the experience and Ricki and I have experienced and what we're saying we want all women to have, is the known midwife. Midwives in Australia are not able to work to their capacity, they are not funded publicly to work in their own right, and they are not able to gain funding under the Medicare arrangements.

PAULA KRUGER: About 30 per cent of births in Australia are by caesarean section. Those who support natural births says that rate is too high and shows there is too much interference by the medical establishment.

The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists says there are a range of complex factors to explain the high caesarean rate, including the older age at which women are giving birth, and litigation against doctors.

MARK COLVIN: Paula Kruger.




Ricki Lake launches home birth campaign

SMH/AAP - November 2, 2007 - 3:46PM

Controversial former US talk show host Ricki Lake has brought her new message to Australia - girlfriend, give home birth a chance.

Ms Lake, now seen as the Al Gore of home birth with An Inconvenient Truth-style personal film documenting the birth of her second child under water, has launched a campaign to rewrite maternity procedures in Australia.

Ms Lake's film, The Business of Being Born, has been grabbed by a political party, What Women Want, as its little red book for maternity reform and revolution in Australia.

While Ms Lake wouldn't buy into the current federal election, she said birthing procedures encapsulated a broader politic, much more profound than rich or famous women being "too posh to push".

"If Angelina Jolie had a water birth in Africa then more women would be clamouring for that," she told reporters.

"I do think this is a political issue, this issue of women fighting for their right for choice.

"I'm pro-woman, pro-baby, I'm pro-safety and choices.

"I wanted to question why women were having caesarean sections and not questioning why major abdominal surgery is needed?

"It (birth) is painful, but it's a manageable pain. But people don't realise recovering from a caesarean is far more painful," she said.

What Woman Want founder and president Justine Caines said both of Australia's major political parties had failed pregnant women because there was no promoted option for home birthing.

Home birthing would reduce the cost stress on Australia's health care system while empowering women, she said.

"Maternity services are the largest volume area of health and we have had no commitment from the major parties to reform maternity health," Ms Caines told reporters.

Ms Caines said a US survey of five million births after low-risk pregnancies had found home births were safer than going into a hospital.

Meanwhile obstetricians' fees had risen 269 per cent since the last election.

Labor's $30 million post-natal depression policy would be unnecessary if women had more one-on-one care during pregnancy, as her party was advocating, she said.

"In a NSW or Australian hospital today a midwife will be caring for one, two or more labouring women at a time but they work in a very unproductive way,"
Ms Caines said.

"When you have one known midwife and one known woman and not at 2am, (it's like) gee, here are her notes ... I don't know her, she's a bit of paper to me."

© 2007 AAP

[SweetPea]

Will there be a screening in Sydney that you know of? I just watched the trailer and it looks very interesting, I am amazed about the look on the midwives faces when they're asked how often they see a natural birth, it was almost as if they weren't sure what it was!

[BellyBelly]

Were they midwives or med students? Or Obs?

No, it was just in Sydney, I posted about tickets before the event and put it in the newsletter so you must have missed it!

I am sure more groups will try and get it screened around Australia, I have applied for a screening in Melbourne ASAP. The sad thing is, we think the US is worse than us, but it is us who have the higher c/s rate!

[Green Tree Frog]

I too would love to see it, but have no hope up here. I hope that ABC or SBS will have the balls to show it!!!

[Shanti]

Kelly - that looks soo interesting i really want to see it all!!!

[SweetPea]

Just saw that I missed it! I must have missed it in the newsletter too. Hopefully it'll get shown on abc or sbs at some stage.

[BellyBelly]

Apparently no-one has bought rights to it in other countries yet, I dont know if they are actively selling it elsewhere but are thinking of it. Someone asked on the night.

[doulacara]

SweetPea - keep your eyes and ears peeled as I am sure there will be screenings in and around Sydney soon. We are organising one in the Blue Mts in Dec/Jan.

For those in far flung places - why not organise your own screening? It costs $200 to hire the movie for a night. The more people that see this movie, the more likely it might effect change.

C

[BellyBelly]

Hahaha... hospitals/obs aren't going to know what hit them. And about darn time too!!!

[BellyBelly]

I've got some footage of the press conference they held too if you want to see:

LIVENEWS.com.au > Multimedia > Ricki Lake confronts audiences in new childbirth doco

[Shanti]

just watched it, thats great Kelly.... i really really hope to see that entire documentary one day. I like Ricki too!

[Adnil]

So is this going to come out on DVD so we can buy it?

[Roryrory]

What is so true is the quote from one of the women interviewed - if I can do this I can do anything. I am sure that having my boy the way I did made everything else easier. I only have to trust this time will be the same.
Here's hoping SBS or ABC buys the rights....

[LG]

I would love to see that screened in Adelaide! Or avaliable on DVD to buy. What are the chances??

[BellyBelly]

You could get a group together to screen it - $200 to hire the film and of course the venue/equipment costs. Anyone could put it on, or you could approach a group to do it. I am sure some birth groups will do it.