For the women who desire a home birth I say: please do your homework, find someone who is credentialed, ask about their emergency plan, how quickly can you get to a hospital if something goes wrong? Do not attempt a home birth if the baby is breech, Cara Mulhahn brags that she will do this for you and she brags that she will do vaginal births after c-section (VBAC) at home. This is extremely dangerous! Before considering it, research the risks yourself. Don’t just take her word for it. Interview many OB’s and ask their policies on pitocin, epidural, IV’s etc. You will be surprised to learn that if you are truly a candidate, you can have the birth experience you hoped for (even in a hospital). We spend so much time googling and researching so much in our lives but when Ricki Lake produces a movie people begin to reject what hospitals offer. Don’t dismiss the possibility of a birthing center run by midwives. They give you the same loving care of a midwife assisted birth but there is a plan in place for emergencies. Just because women have been doing if for years without interventions doesn’t mean that we have to do it now. We learn from the past and seek to improve in our futures.

To the women who have successfully had a home birth I say congratulations. You are to be commended for your strength, endurance and commitment to what you believe. Please support your friends in whatever way they choose to have their babies. All women are to be honored for bringing forth a new perfect life.

To the women who cannot have home births or vaginal deliveries I say: don’t grieve! Embrace the blessings of your new baby and enjoy him/her. Don’t allow someone to make you feel as though you failed, or you are less capable of loving your child because you chose, or had to choose a different path. Isn’t the whole point to have a healthy baby to love? Congratulations to you as well.
As for the business end of things (as the title of the documentary suggests). I am passionate about the work that I do and the service I provide. I have hundreds of thank you notes, and baby pictures from the families I have helped over the years. I do however, deserve to make a living and provide for my family. To suggest that health care providers are all about the mighty dollar is not fair to me or the wonderful doctors I have come to know and love. Please note that the midwife in the film is probably making A LOT of money. I don’t know what she charges but her clients live in Manhattan and I am guessing they pay cash. I say this because if she is not a certified midwife, then I expect that she cannot charge your health insurance for her service. This also explains why she doesn’t have malpractice insurance..nobody will cover her. She therefore has the ability to charge any fee she wants to since she is not hindered by insurance caps. I wonder how much of what she does is about business?

It may not appear so, but I want to repeat that I do support home births. It can be a beautiful thing when all goes well. I hope that as we move forward women will continue to advocate for themselves and thus have the best birthing experience possible.

Brandi: You do not know how all doctors in the U.S. feel either. Just because your husband is a doctor does not mean you know everything about how all doctors operate.

The rights of the women who wants homebirth is the issue here not hospitals if you wnat a medical birth you can have it easy! for those of us who wnat home its not so easy or available. I dont want all those drugs in me or my kids.

it should be every woman’s choice where to birth, not a madate from a medical board, this is why i live here, the freedom to live my life the way i feel is right.

AMA showed physicians’ insecurity of losing their market share in the ‘business of being born’ by attacking Ricki’s documentary, which merely shows the beauty and possibility of safe homebirth or natural childbirth in a non-hospital setting.

I applaud Ricki’s effort in putting this issue in the limelight.
The AMA and the medical community need to spend more time improving the quality of service they provide in hospitals for childbirth, opening more birthing center inside hopsitals, giving women choices in childbirth, helping women feel comfortable and respected in their most vulnerable time – when they are in labor, rather than criticising Ricki’s work by their usual scare tactics. The high mortality rate in childbirth in US today are from hospital birth, not home birth.

I’m 35 and my Dad was born in 1928 in a house via a midwife. This is how MOST people in the HISTORY OF THE WORLD have been born. Birth is NOT an “illness” that one needs to be hospitalized for.

My Dad was also pissed that the medical industry pushed and harrased him and his wife to circumcise his sons. My father was uncut, and my parents had NEVER thought of doing it. The docs in the 70′s pushed and pushed and harrassed and guilted my mother into relenting. She regrets it now, and I RESENT like hell that this was done to the most personal part of MY BODY without my knowledge or consent, and my father was NEVER cool with it.

Does anyone know why we are one of the ONLY countries to still practice large scale genital mutilation of baby boys? Docs get to charge for it AND the hospital SELLS the foreskins to biomedical companies!…

The AMA is a big bunch of CORPORATE DOCS concerned with ONE THING and ONE THING ONLY! MONEY!MONEY!MONEY!MONEY!MONEY!

BILLIONS of Asians have been born while their moms were working in the rice patties! Birth is a natural process, NOT an illness and foreskins are a natural part of a mans anatomy NOT a birth defect.

The things that the American corporate health care scheme have convinced Americans of is shameful!

No.
I almost had my baby at home… which it should have been a perfect experience!
I’m plannning on having my next one at home… And it’s true, as soon as you come to the hospital, nurses and doctors try to brainwash you and push narcotics and what not into your labor…
BAD!

I posted earlier and have gone back and read further responses that I feel I need to remark upon.

Medical Professional: I wonder what profession you are in and if you have ever watched or given a non-augmented (no pit, no epidural) vaginal birth? Or if you can define why home birth is reckless? If you specify a little bit more maybe then we can all understand where/why you are saying it is reckless.

Midwives that I know have gone through a rigorous training for four years plus several years as an apprentice. They know how to turn breech babies and/or will allow a mom to push her own baby out. Which I did with my twins. My son was a frank breech that I caught, and my daughter was a posterior footling.

If I had been in a hospital this would have been grounds for an automatic c-section, only because they couldn’t be sure of what would happen. I had no worries about me delivering my breech twins. I knew my midwives could do a version, or facilitate my babies in coming out! Which wound up happening with my daughter.

I wish that Dr’s and midwives could work in a more symbiotic relationship, but that would defeat the purpose of the AMA. Oh wait Holland does that. A midwife takes care of all of the pre-natals and only sends them on to a DR if truly medically needed! Why can’t America, where we are free citizens and can make up our own mind of what will and won’t work for us, do something similar? Why does it always have to be all or nothing? Why is money the definer of our choices?

I respect decisions for either c-sections, birth center, or home births. But YOU, should make the decision. The decision of where and how YOU give birth should not be dictated by anyone. Whether or not enough information was given by all sides ind the documentary there was much that the AMA and ACOG would not respond on when they were given the opportunity to do so. If they are having issues with how they are being portrayed then they need to come forward and give the information that is requested.

Sam I am so sorry for your loss.