The Business of Being Born

I chose to watch The Business of Being Born (2007) because my life partner had recently seen it and had mixed feelings about it, so I decided to give it a shot. Normally I don't like "social documentaries" that beat you over the head with whatever it is that they think you should believe, but for the sake of this experiment, I'll watch em all.

BoBB, as I like to call it, examines the "industrialization" of giving birth. They argue that hospitals are good places to have babies if drugs, surgery, etc. are needed, but not in "normal" birthing situations. To that I say, meh. I suppose that may be true, but so what? Answer: some hippy crap about the birth no longer belonging to the mother and other granola arguments.

Anyway, the film was not made for men. Part of their argument was how much more enjoyable/intimate home birthing is. In order to make this point, they showed a number of home births, including that of Ricky Lake. My question is this, if you're trying to promote home births, why would you show Ricky Lake giving birth?? The one thing I really liked about the movie is that the investigator was pregnant and attempted a live birth. However, since the baby was breach, she had to go to the hospital. It was nice of them to show the counterarguments.

Overall, I didn't much care for it. It is a pretty standard social documentary, but it didn't really convince me that home births are that much better. I gave it a 2/5 on Netflix, but I would definitely recommend it to someone considering having a baby. I would also recommend fast-forwarding through Ricky Lake, naked in a bath tub.