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Summary of The Business of Being Born (documentary)....

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Ashley Athy Mandi Cygne Soc. 255 24 March 2013

In the documentary The Business of Being Born (2008), the Americanized notion of childbirth as more of a “cookie cutter” medical procedure--versus a natural occurrence that varies from person to person--is questioned. The creators of the documentary make the point that despite our “cutting edge medical procedures” for birth, America’s infant mortality rate is the second worst in the developed world. Going along with this point, it is stated that in other developed countries like Japan, midwives are present for seventy to eighty percent of births, while in America midwives attend less than eight percent of births. (2008). The reason for America’s stigma against home and natural births is apparent: with the advent of medical technology and by proxy the need for more trained physicians in the early 1900s, midwives were “shunned” in order for these physicians to continue their practice. Medical practitioners even went so far as to post smear campaigns against midwives: In an article from The American Journal of Public Health, midwives are described as “…ignorant, careless, and dirty because they are neither trained nor supervised.” Midwives are described as a “problem,” and while the article briefly concedes that those in the medical profession may make mistakes, the blame largely falls on the midwife when it comes to children who are born with physical abnormalities (Van Blarcom, 1914). This article conveniently fails to mention the use of drugs such as thalidomide--which was found to be toxic to babies and result in stunted or no limb growth—in conventional hospitals during childbirth (D’amato, et. al., 1994). In addition, the 2008 documentary also mentions two medical procedures that are still used today in childbirth: injection of Pitocin and the epidural. While these drugs may not have effects as drastic as the effects of thalidomide, they are said to create a “snowball effect” during childbirth. First

the epidural is given: this weakens the contractions, which creates a “need” for Pitocin to speed up the contractions and make them stronger. When this occurs, the pain of the contractions grow, creating a “need” for another epidural: this cycle repeats itself until the child is finally delivered or a C-section is eventually needed--the eventual C-section being quite likely (2008). All in all, this method simply creates more fear on the part of the mother and more power given to the doctor. However, during a natural or water birth the mother is in control and acts according to what her body is doing. I interviewed Elise Sprenger, mother of four children, as she described the difference between having given birth in a “standard hospital setting” and experiencing a water birth. The following is her account of the differences she experienced between the two different types of birth: “… [I] was able to listen to my body's cues and work with them- for instance when pushing I wasn't just all out pushing thanks to an epidural that blocked any feeling- I was pushing with the contractions that were productive and as a result I had NO tearing, while I tore very badly with all 3 ‘conventional hospital’ births. This time I came to the birthing center when I was already moving into transition (going from 7cm-10cm), was able to progress naturally, and my water never broke so she was born ‘in the caul’ which is [a] rare and a cool experience. I was able to be IV and cords/wires free. The only time I had to be stuck by a needle was a quick blood draw before discharge. Also, laboring in the warm/hot water was SO RELAXING!” Even though Elise’s birth did not take place in a “conventional hospital setting,” everything went according to plan—in her opinion the water birth was actually much better. As for her midwife, Elise says: “She told me I would know what to do, I would be awesome and was very hands off during labor and delivery until I needed her…she also has tons of experience, at least two of my friends have worked with her and I trusted her because she trusted my body to do what it was made to do.” This certainly does not sound like the supposedly “untrained” and “dirty” midwife of the early nineteenth century. It

seems that this same stigma has survived even up to the present day: Elise told me during the interview that people went so far as to call her a “crazy hippie” for wanting a water birth handled largely by a midwife. It seems that a shift from the home-based economy to a “family-wage economy” (Eitzen, et. al. 2011) played a substantial role in this new way of thinking, and later the stigma against natural births and midwives. In the textbook Diversity in Families, industrialization is cited as the main reason for the movement of goods and services from the home to the workforce. “As goods and labor moved out of the household and into the commercial economy, the family lost many of the functions it had in colonial society. No longer was the family a workshop, church, reformatory, school, and asylum” (Eitzen, et. al., 2011). With this shift in power from the family to the workforce came a shift in power from women to the proverbial “big business” of industrialization. Women were expected to take care of the household and children while the men labored outside of the home and made sure that the family’s basic needs were taken care of (Eitzen, et. al., 2011). As this shift took place, so did the shift from natural childbirth to “conventional hospital childbirth.” Mothers who chose to have natural, midwife-supervised births were labeled “bad mothers” as a result of the previously mentioned smear campaigns against midwives. The attitude towards childbirth, in short, changed from “mother knows best” to “doctor knows best.” Due to the shift in roles between husband and wife in the early 1900s, the wife found her identity--in most cases—tied with her children and keeping the household together and running. If someone told the wife that she was being a “bad mother” for doing something, she was most certainly going to listen and change her methods accordingly. This shift in power from women to the hospitalization industry has prevailed to the present day: America has one of the lowest rates of midwife-supervised births in the developed world, and as mentioned previously it also has the second highest infant mortality rate (2008). Until we change our attitudes about childbirth—until mothers and mothers-to-be take back the reigns where pregnancy is concerned and truly learn what childbirth should be as opposed to what the

doctors want—these rates are going to stay the same. As long as women who want natural births are labeled as “crazy hippies,” mothers-to-be will continue to fear what their bodies are naturally supposed to do.

Sources Cited

Lake , R. (Producer) (2008). The business of being born [Web].

Van Blarcom, C. C. (1914). Midwives in America. The American Journal of Public Health, 198-199. Web.

D'amato, R. (1994). Thalidomide is an inhibitor of angiogenesis. Proc. Nati. Acad. Sci. USA, 91, 4082-4085. Web.

Eitzen, S., et. al. (2011). Diversity in families. (9th ed., pp. 48-53). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Print.

Sprenger, E. (2013, March 23). Interview by A.N. Athy [Web Based Recording]....