Sounds like a great film...

From a wonderful review on Ricki Lake's new film The Business of Being Born:

"What was so striking to me at the time was its simplicity. A strange word to describe such a magnificent feat of biology, one that is now so fraught with fear and enshrined in medical technology in our culture. And yet, there it was. The midwives barely did anything; Perla's body knew what to do all by itself.

The way maternity care is going in the U.S., you'd hardly know the female body is capable of this. More than half of labors today are started or sped up with artificial hormones; nearly all mothers give birth in a hospital bed with their knees at their armpits and someone shouting at them to push; and nearly one-third of babies are extracted via major abdominal surgery, the cesarean section.

Was Perla just incredibly lucky, or is something terribly amiss with standard maternity care?

Lake's documentary poses this question as well through various experts and activists. More importantly though, the births speak for themselves. You get the lasting impression that this act of giving birth -- in the active, full-body sense -- is something exhilarating, extraordinary; something that, if possible, is not to be missed, and certainly not to be mishandled."

Amen to that, Sister.