Educational Media Reviews Online

This 30-minute documentary is a condensed version of the original 2008 feature-length film exploring the contemporary experience of childbirth in the United States from the perspectives of both mothers and healthcare providers. Produced by the film and TV actress, Ricki Lake, because of the concerns she had during her own pregnancy and childbirth experience, the film asks whether the current standard American system of hospital childbirth emphasizing the use of drugs (not only to eliminate pain, but to induce and speed labor) as well as the steadily expanding use of Caesarean section delivery is actually better and safer than the standard of routine obstetrical care in the rest of the developed world—that is, natural home births with the aid of professional midwives.

This “classroom edition” effectively raises all of the same questions from the original film and also includes three supplementary short film features. The first is a Birth by the Numbers presentation (22 minutes) by Eugene Declercq, Professor of Maternal Child Health at the Boston University School of Public Health, analyzing US and international data about the rates of Caesarean section delivery and its complications. The other two are interviews with TV actress mothers: Alyson Hannigan and her husband Alexis Denisof (7 minutes) who discuss her midwife-assisted home birthing experience, and Kellie Martin (6 minutes) who describes her hospital midwife-assisted natural childbirth experience. Dr. Declercq and Katie Kreb, M.P.H. have also created a Birth by the Numbers website and a printed Classroom Toolkit for use with the films, including: timelines for class sessions; an introductory instructor script; pre- and post- student assessment questions; class discussion questions; supplementary books, videos and websites; student project suggestions; and a career options resource guide for students.

The Business of Being Born: Classroom Edition and its supplementary short films would be excellent additions to the curricula of physicians, nurses and other allied health professionals in training and as in-service continuing education resources for these professions. The Toolkit materials should help faculty, or CE program planners, to facilitate productive discussions about the relative benefits of our current system of hospital childbirth and midwife assisted natural childbirth.

The shortened film maintains the excellent production values from its first release at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival.