Business of Being Born.

This weekend Kley and I watched our first documentary together. (I don't ever remember watching a documentary before. At least not on my own free time.) It was so interesting! It was called The Business of Being Born. It talked about the differences in birthing in the US verses other countries, and it talked a lot about using a midwife. It said that a midwife is present at at least 70% of births in European countries, while they are only at 8% of US births. Wow! I was also shocked at how they portrayed hospitals as businesses and how they wanted to rush your labor if it took too long, encouraging you to use methods such as petocin and the vacuum during delivery, even if not completely necessary. Now, I know this documentary was filmed in NYC, and this was only at one particular hospital, but it was still shocking. They talked about how births have changed over the years- in 1900, almost all births (95%) took place at home, but by 1955, only 1% of births took place at home. They also showed several home births. The whole thing. Every detail. Wow.

I'm not trying to give an opinion on home births, hospitals, or midwives, but I would recommend the documentary. It was very interesting. If births interest you, watch it! It's on Netflix. It definitely made me think a lot about midwives, when I never have before, simply because I didn't know very much about them.