Ohio’s first screening of Pregnant in America!

Saturday November 15, 2008 2-8 p.m.

2-5 p.m. Screening of Pregnant in America
followed by a panel Discussion on Grassroots Activism
with Susan Hodges, President, Citizens for Midwifery and
Jane Peterson, President, Wisconsin Guild of Midwives
Others TBA

5 pm-6 pm Break for Dinner (on your own)

6-8 p.m. Group Discussion for Midwives and Apprentices
with Jane Peterson of Wisconsin Midwives Guild

Holiday Inn Akron West
4073 Medina Rd.
Akron, OH 44333

Tickets for Movie are $7 in Advance, $9 at the door
order now from BrownPaperTickets
or call 888-847-0014 for more info

Bring cash and buy yummy goodies at our bake sale!

Presented by Akron BirthNetwork National, Ohio Midwives Alliance
and Ohio Families for Safe Birth

Directions:

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November 15th in Akron, the Akron Birth Network, the Ohio Midwives Alliance, and Ohio Families for Safe Birth are pleased to bring you a special pre-release showing of Pregnant in America, a full month before it is released to the general public.

The showing will be followed by a community conversation about home birth, midwifery, and regulation. Susan Hodges, president of Citizens for Midwifery, will be joining us. Jane Peterson, president of the Wisconsin Midwives Guild and a chief orchestrator of Wisconsin’s recent successful legislative effort, will also be present “babies permitting.”

More details to follow soon!

…to see Orgasmic Birth at the IMAX in Columbus! 7:00 p.m. tonight at Marcus IMAX theatre at Crosswoods Center (200 Hutchinson Ave.) A panel discussion on “Birth and Sexuality” will follow the film, and door prizes will be given at the end of the evening. It is too late to buy advance tickets if you haven’t already done so, but tickets will be available for $12 at the door.

The film showing at the Little Art Theatre in Yellow Springs last weekend was well-received,  with good turn-out and a stimulating panel discussion from local birth professionals following the film. Several people present said they liked Orgasmic Birth even better than The Business of Being Born. If Columbus is too far for you, don’t worr: Ohio Families for Safe Birth plans to host screenings in other parts of the state as well.

If you go to the Columbus screening, or saw the film already in Cincinnati, Yellow Springs, or elsewhere,  feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section. Did you find the title accurate, helpful, intriguing, or off-putting? What did you like or dislike about the movie? Would you reccommend this film to others, and why?

It’s been a fantastic year for birth documentaries. First there was the Business of Being Born (now available on Netflix) making a big splash in the media and causing panic in the AMA. Next came Orgasmic Birth (there will be big screen showings in Yellow Springs and Columbus this month), showing a beautiful alternative to the usual medicalized hospital delivery. And in December, Pregnant in America will be coming out as well.

The Other Side of The Glass takes a perspective that is completely different from any of these films. ACOG’s anti-home statement criticizes women for ostensibly prioritizing their “experience” above safety, but what is rarely considered is that childbirth is experienced by two people. And while mothers giving birth in hospitals often feel vulnerable and powerless, unable to prevent unnecessary procedures and interventions, their baby, fully conscious but unable to articulate his or her experience, is even more vulnerable.

This documentary will advocate for humanizing our treatment of newborn infants in all birth settings, and its target audience is fathers:  appealling to their natural role as protector of mother and infant, and empowering them to take up that cause for the sake of their families. The title is taken from the experience of a father in a hospital, watching helplessly from behind a plate glass window as his screaming newborn is poked and prodded by a stranger.

The ten minute trailer can be seen here.

There will be a screening of Orgasmic Birth on Saturday, September 20th, at 4:00 p.m. at the Little Art Theatre in Yellow Springs, OH. ( click here for a directions)

The showing will be followed  by a panel discussion and silent auction at 6:00 p.m. at the Emporium Cafe (on the same street).

Tickets will be available at the door for a suggested $10 donation. Proceeds from the event will support prenatal, labor, and postpartum support in the Miami Valley. A flyer for the event can be downloaded here.

What would happen if women were taught to enjoy birth rather than endure it?

Orgasmic Birth is a documentary that examines the intimate nature of birth and the powerful role it plays in women’s lives when they are permitted to experience it fully. Powerful, passionate, and thought provoking, it dismantles untruths about labor and birth that women have been told for generations.

On September 25 at 7:00 p.m., Ohio Families for Safe Birth (Columbus chapter) will host the only large-screen showing in Central Ohio at Marcus IMAX theatre at Crosswoods Center (200 Hutchinson Ave.) A panel discussion on “Birth and Sexuality” will follow the film, and door prizes will be given at the end of the evening.

Seating is limited. Advance tickets may be purchased for $10 through the Paypal link below; tickets will be $12 at the door.

(To buy an advance ticket by mail, please send your $10 to Amy Wakeling at 2030 Rolling Meadows Dr. Columbus, OH 43228.)

For more details about the film, visit the Orgasmic Birth website. If you are in the Columbus area, please download the promotional flyer  and put it up in your neighborhood.

There will be a screening of The Business of Being Born at Kent State University (KIVA- Student Center) in Kent Ohio on February 21st at 8pm. Admission is only $2.00 and KSU Students get in free. 

“In the olden days people didn’t have to go to hospitals to have babies. They had them at home.”

“So they did,” Mother agreed. “But even if I had the baby at home, I couldn’t come see you being the angel.”

“Why not?”

“Brand new babies need a lot of attention,” Mother said, “and they can’t be taken out in the cold. I was pretty tied down at Christmas time the year you were born.”

“But I was born!” I cried. “And you were home for Christmas. You didn’t go off and leave John and Suzy alone. Oh, I forgot. Suzy wasn’t born. Anyhow, Mother, please could you ask the baby to wait till after Christmas?”

“I can ask,” Mother said, “but I wouldn’t count on it.”

I pull out The Twenty-Four Days Before Christmas by Madeleine L’Engle to read to my kids every year during Advent. It’s a longer picture book, about right for elementary-school aged children, though my preschoolers will usually sit through it. Narrated by seven year old Vicky, the book describes her close-knit family’s Advent traditions, her eager watch with her siblings for the first snowfall of the year, her anxieties about her role in the church Christmas Pageant, and her horrified realization that her mother may not be home for Christmas. All these plot strings come together on Christmas eve, when a terrific snowstorm blocks the roads and the pageant and Christmas Eve service are canceled. During the snow-storm, the baby arrives at home without fuss, panic, or painful disruption of family traditions, with Vicky’s mother attended by her husband, who is a family practice doctor.

This story is particularly special to my family because I have been pregnant or had a newborn during the Advent season many times — including having a baby on Christmas day. But I also enjoy the way the home birth in this book is worked into the storyline as an important plot feature but not the main point of the book. It’s a well-written children’s story that happens to include a home birth rather than a children’s story about home birth.

Published in 1984, the illustrations seem a little dated to me, but none of my children have ever complained. The book is, unfortunately, out-of print, and some of the copies available online are ridiculously expensive, but check your library — Hamilton County library system has a copy. I found ours several years ago at a library discard sale.

ICAN of Greater Cincinnati hosted a special screening of The Business of Being Born this past Saturday. Jerren Helwig shares her review of the film.

“We know there’s a problem, but what can we do about it?”

That was the response of everyone present at the Mariemont Theater on Saturday after seeing The Business of Being Born.

The movie is a documentary, made from the perspective of a pregnant woman and her husband who are friends with the film’s executive producer Ricki Lake. Ricki talks about her first birth and her desire for a participation in the process that she didn’t get to experience with her first delivery. This quest led her to have her second baby at home, in water, with a midwife.

Scenes of women laboring in the comfort of their own home are interspersed with historical information and scenes of birth in the US following the migration of women from home to hospital since the 1930s. The movie addresses some big medical screw ups, like scopolamine (one of the components of “Twilight sleep” — my mom had her first baby in this condition — these scenes gave me a stomach ache) and thalidomide (my grandmother had a baby with flippers for arms because of this drug).

The movie also lets you walk a few steps in the life of a CNM in New York City. She’s a cool, “with it” midwife, who loves her job and is ready to help women do their thing. She even shows clips of her own birth at home — her labor scenes brought laughter from the theater crowd. She tells everyone to get out, she says she wants her mommy, and she just doesn’t want to push because it will hurt, but she decides she should so she won’t be pregnant forever! She comments that she is able to sympathize with her clients so much better since she went through a rough labor personally. As a midwife myself, I was laughing hysterically because I could very much relate with those scenes!

Also seen throughout the movie were comments from Ina May Gaskin (American Midwife legend), Marsden Wagner, former director of WHO-maternal/child health (has any midwife movie been made WITHOUT him?), Susan Hodges, president of Citizens for Midwifery (I met her recently, she’s awesome!), Michel Odent, French Obstetrician and Researcher on Love Hormones (all his comments have subtitles because there’s no way you could understand otherwise, but they were REALLY great comments) and then various other men and women addressing different aspects of midwifery, natural birth, obstetrics, etc. The movie even had a few scenes from two obstetricians who did not support home birth and they were actually made to look quite ridiculous because they were speaking on a topic they knew nothing about.

Towards the end, the woman filming the documentary with her husband goes into premature labor with a baby who has IUGR (intra uterine growth restriction) and is breech. They decide to go to the hospital to their backup doctor (who was seen earlier in the film and was supportive of their midwife attended home birth desire) and have a c-section. Their little baby boy was very small (I can’t remember the exact weight, 3 pounds maybe?). The movie ended with a quick interview 7 months after the birth, talking about her feelings about how her experience had ended so differently than planned. After all, she had just filmed a documentary with all these women having ecstatic home births. She was sad she missed out, and said it wasn’t what she had hoped for, but she was very happy her baby was ok.

To sum up, The Business of Being Born was a comprehensive movie that touched on some great topics surrounding the history, present and future of birth in America. I was disappointed about how it ended - but maybe that was the point?

After the film showing, ICAN Cincinnati had arranged for a panel discussion of local birth professionals. The panelists were Jackie Gruer, President of Birth And Beyond, Certified Nurse-Midwife, and founder of the former Midwives Care birth center; Claudia Harsh, a physician acupuncturist and former OB/GYN; Stacy Hudepohl, a Certified Nurse-Midwife; Sylvia Lieb of Ohio Midwives’ Alliance, a Certified Professional Midwife; and Eileen Ryan, a birth doula and La Leche League leader. April Kline moderated. Each panelist gave her opinion of the movie. Ellen said she thought it was a bit “one sided” towards homebirth. Jackie said she loved it! She loved the clips from a Monte Python hospital birth scene (you can get it on YouTube - the machine that goes PING!). I would say that all agreed that there is a problem with birth in America. There were some great comments from the movie goers, all with similar sentiments.

Now, in my opinion, this is where the frustration in the room for the current situation had the potential to turn into energy for a solution. But nobody gave one. Everyone said, the problem is complicated and they don’t know what to do about it. What about rallying the troops around demanding better access to midwifery care? What if every one of those families went back with a plan to work towards that goal? Oh, the impact that would have made, after such a dramatic movie!

Maybe OFSB could arrange another showing of the movie and we could have information and a plan for how each person affected by this movie could take that home and make a difference for women and choices for childbirth in this country. Maybe we can do something about it!

Jerren Helwig is a mother of 4 and a Certified Professional Midwife.