The Business Of Being Born Summary

The Business of Being Born is a documentary that explores the current childbirth practices in the United States. It is produced by former talk-show host Ricki Lake, and it compares different childbirth methods, such as the use of midwives for home births, natural births, C-sections and epidurals. The film criticizes the over medicalization of childbirth as it is treated in the American health care system as a medical emergency as opposed to a natural occurrence. It exposes the unnecessary uses of drugs and costly interventions women are forced into without having been educated by the medical professionals on why it is being used and its potential harmful effects to the woman and the fetus. This film documents water births and home
births,
and filmmakers accompany a midwife, Cara, in New York as she attends and takes care of several births. Many medical professionals are interviewed and explain how medical procedures are overused in the interest of saving time.
This film raised some issues that were previously discussed in class, such as medicalization, which is the assumption that normal body functions, such as childbirth, are seen as indicative of disease.
This medicalization of pregnancy is one of the many aspects of a woman’s health that has been deemed as an ailment and something that women cannot control.
The patriarchal model that is responsible for the idea that women are essentially abnormal is rooted in the belief that women are victims of their hormones and reproductive systems and that pregnancy is pathological and a clinical crisis. Historically, this patriarchal model has been the reason why reproduction is seen as a biological defect rather than a natural occurrence. The issue of women’s reproductive health is also shown in the film as it shows how the health care system lacks the implementation of health education programs that would guide women through their options when it comes to childbirth. Instead, the health care system constantly misinforms or fails to educate women on their options and the risks associated with medical procedures and drugs that are given to women sometimes without their consent.
Watching the Business of Being Born changed my perspective of the
medical community and of hospitals. I previously thought that hospitals were a place where doctors and nurses worked to help an individual and aimed for their best interest, now I understand that hospitals are businesses and are more interested in the bottom line as opposed to actively doing what is best for the patient. Women are being programmed to accept the medicalization of childbirth as normal, and to do anything different would mean to go against the standardization of birth and would place the newborn at risk. However, the core of this programming is due to the emphasis of Western belief that focuses on science, technology and profit, and the medical system reflects this emphasis. The empowerment of women that comes with giving birth has been replaced by the notion that women don’t know their own bodies and that they shouldn’t have control over them. I believe that in some cases women should seek medical help whenever there is a complication that a midwife or birthing center isn’t equipped to deal with and that if women chose to give birth in hospitals, they should be informed of their options and given more liberty to choose what kind of birth they want to have.