Documentaries on Pregnancy & Home Births
The Business of Being Born
While the United States has perhaps the most advanced health care system in the world, it also has the second-highest infant mortality rate of any industrialized nation, and many have begun to question conventional wisdom regarding the way obstetricians deal with childbirth. While midwives preside over the majority of births in Europe and Japan, fewer than ten percent of American mothers employ them, despite their proven record of care and success. How do American doctors make their choices regarding the way their patients give birth, and who is intended to benefit? Director Abby Epstein and producer Ricki Lake offer a probing look at childbirth in America in the documentary The Business of Being Born, which explores the history of obstetrics, the history and function of Midwives, and how many common medical practices may be doing new mothers more harm than good.
The Face of Birth (2012)
The Face of Birth - a film about pregnancy, childbirth, and the power of choice. This documentary follows the diverse, heart-warming, and sometimes heart wrenching stories of a handful of mothers as they guide us through the plethora of information and opinions facing mothers-to-be when deciding how, where, and with whom to give birth to their babies.
Microbirth (2014)
Winner of Grand Prix Award at 2014 Life Sciences Film Festival. A documentary on the latest research on the origins of the microbiome; how microscopic events during childbirth have lifelong consequences for the health of our children.
Birth Time
Zoe Naylor, Jerusha Sutton and Jo Hunter embark on a mission to find out why an increasing number of women/people are emerging from their births physically and emotionally traumatized. Their discoveries expose the truth and lead them to join the birth revolution and create this Birth Time education platform that hopes to change the face of maternity care across the world.
Birth Story: Ina May Gaskin and The Farm Midwives (2012)
Birth Story: Ina May Gaskin and The Farm Midwives captures a spirited group of women who taught themselves how to deliver babies on a 1970s hippie commune. Today as nearly one third of all US babies are born via C-section, they fight to protect their knowledge and to promote respectful, safe maternity practices all over the globe. From the backs of their technicolor school buses, these pioneers rescued American midwifery from extinction, changed the way a generation approached pregnancy, and filmed nearly everything they did. With unprecedented access to the midwives' archival video collection, as well as modern day footage of life at the alternative intentional community where they live, this documentary shows childbirth the way most people have never seen it--unadorned, unabashed, and awe-inspiring.
Freedom for Birth (2012)
A documentary that re-frames Human Rights issues as the most pressing issue in childbirth today; calling for radical change to the world's maternity systems - this is the Mothers' Revolution.
The Joy of Natural Childbirth (1985)
Some of Hollywood's most famous couples share their feelings about childbirth with an emphasis on the popular Lamaze method of delivery.
Orgasmic Birth: The Best-Kept Secret (2008)
Enter the world of undisturbed birth as 11 couples share their intimate personal journeys, facing their fears and moving through pain into the ecstasy of birth. Orgasmic Birth poses the ultimate challenge to our cultural myths.
Laboring Under an Illusion: Mass Media Childbirth vs. The Real Thing (2009)
100 video clips contrast real and fictional birth scenes, from the silly to the sublime. Anthropologist Vicki Elson shares highlights from her collection of TV and movie birth scenes -- in hospitals, bathtubs, cars, spaceships, and trees -- side by side with ample footage of actual birth. The contrast is hilarious, engaging, and enlightening.
Midwife (2013)
MIDWIFE follows Minnesota home birth midwife, Sarah Biermeier (of Geneabirth), during her first year as a Certified Professional Midwife (CPM). The documentary quietly shows the life of a home birth midwife, from prenatals, to births, to postpartums, while also examining what the birth environment looks like in states where home birth midwifery is not legal, and families are faced with fewer birth options.