Mothers : A Documentary Film

Sissy made the decision to deliver her eleventh child in a hospital. This decision saved her baby because the doctor gave Stephen Aaron oxygen to revive him. The reason Sissy decided to deliver in a hospital was because she would be examined by expert medical attention for the sake of her child. Doctors have medical degrees and will know the proper medical procedures in a time of crisis. Sissy would have heard that doctors prescribed pain relief during a delivery. “Doctors could only administer it because it contained dangerous substances ether and chloroform” (Manning 10). Hospitals also carried anesthetics such as epidurals. Epidurals made it easier during childbirth because it had a “safer approach and the mother could witness her child being born” (Lace 65). Episiotomies, a tool for making incisions, and forceps, a tool for holding the baby’s head during childbirth, were also invented to make birth more efficient. Sissy and other women chose hospitals because it put them in safer position because of medical

As a young wife and mother, Ashima Ganguli experiences labor and delivery just like many other American women, in

Robin Yates’s paper, “Pregnancy and Childbirth, The 1800’s vs. Now: What to Expect When You’re Not Expecting,” was filled with many clear points on the advancement of labor and medicine since the 1800s. This essay was filled with interesting and grabbing facts; however, the structure of the essay needs more support.

This film, “More Business of Being Born, Episode 3: Explore your Options: Doulas, Birth Centers, and C-Sections,” was a spinoff of a movie that was made. This documentary goes further in depth than the movie and allows women to acquire an enhanced understanding of child birth. There are numerous women throughout this episode sharing their real life experiences. Ricki Lake, the executive producer, stated, “We are not experts because we are not doctors or midwives even. We are not telling people what to do, we are simply showing.” That is exactly what they ensure during this film.

For hundred of years, women have wrestled with their womanhood, bodies, and what it means to be a woman in our society. Being a woman comes with a wonderful and empowering responsibility--giving birth. What sets us aside from other countries is that the process and expectations of giving birth has changed in our society; coming from midwifery, as it has always been since the early times, to hospitals where it is now expected to give birth at. Midwifery was a common practice in delivering babies in

The author is a nurse in a level two trauma facility in a community of approximately fifty thousand people in Oregon. The community is a college-town surrounded by a large agricultural area. There is a minimal ethnic diversity within the community. The diversity present occurs mainly from internationally students and faculty from the college. There is a growing population of women who desire low interventional births in the community. The author has worked on the labor and delivery unit of the hospital for the last 14 years. The hospital is the only one in the area to offer trial of labor services to women who have previously undergone a cesarean section. The unit on average experiences around 1000 deliveries annually.

In the past, in the United States the majority of women delivered at home with no anesthetics; women might have received assistance through a family doctor, including midwife care (Thomas, 2011). A radical change happened by the 1960s, when hospital childbirths had become the norm, the pain of the experience was reduced by epidural anesthesia controlled by a physician. Pregnant women received education on breastfeeding and other topics during their medical visits (Thomas, 2011).

Abby Epstein is a producer and director, famous for The Business Of Being Born, Until the Violence Stops, and Sweetening the Pill. The Business of Being Born is a documentary about giving birth at hospital versus giving birth a home by help of a midwife and a doula. A midwife is a person (generally a woman) prepared to help and support women in childbirth. A doula is a woman who is prepared to help another woman throughout childbirth and who may give a support, relief, and guidance to the family after the baby is born. Furthermore, this documentary analyzes the styles that the American health care system accesses childbirth. The usual way of United States, includes hospitals, drugs, and obstetricians, in the same time, birth in many other countries

There has been a long debate over which birthing method women should use today: natural versus medicalized. The World Health Organization defines natural birth as a vaginal birth without the use of any.. and medicalized birth as being .. However, medicalized births are becoming increasingly popular in the United States. The use of technology and medical interventions in the birthing process has increased despite the unchanged basic physiology of childbirth. One of the most common medical interventions in the birthing process is having a cesarean delivery. Despite the known risks of having a cesarean section performed, the rates of this procedure have increased much higher than the acceptable rate of 10-15% as recommended by the World Health Organization. This is due to the reason that cesarean sections are now being performed as a matter of convenience of the physician or at the request of the patient more often than being performed as a life-saving intervention. Thus making surgical and medicalized interventions a part of a common routine in the childbirth experience.

In the United States giving birth has become medicalized and it is because the medical community has convinced women that having a baby in a medical facility is mandatory and better for the baby. Medial birth is not natural birth. The American populace is uneducated about the natural process of labor. The overwhelming amount of women having babies in hospitals is unique to the United States. Most other nations including first world nations, women give birth in the presence of midwives rather than a doctor. According to experts documented in the film, “The United States has the second worst newborn death rate in the developed world.” Also “The US has one of the highest maternal mortality rates among all industrializes countries.” The makers of this film link those fact with the common practice of hospital birthing. According to the film makers, Doctors should only be used in high risk pregnancy and births.

Cesarean birth can be lifesaving for the fetus, the mother, or both in certain cases. However, the rapid increase in cesarean birth rates from 1996 through 2011 without clear evidence of concomitant decreases in maternal or neonatal morbidity or mortality raises significant concern that cesarean delivery is overused (Caughey,

Many people enjoy the idea of planning events before they happen. Whether it’s going on vacation, getting family together for the holidays or planning the arrival of a newborn child;. The natural way for a baby to be born is through the mother’s birth canal and vagina. But, sometimes vaginal birth isn’t possible. More than ever, woman are opting to schedule childbirth electively, even though there can be serious risks and implications involved. Many who choose an elective childbirth, do have a legitimate reason as to why they made that decision. Center for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported that, “cesarean deliveries reached a record high of 32.9 percent” out of all births in the United States (National Center for

However, it is not the women of the United States, instead it is how the United States treat the women giving birth. The United States has one of the highest maternal mortality rates among all industrialized countries, which is shocking because the U.S. is stereotyped to be the best country to live in. I do not however find it shocking that the United States sees the hospital system as a business and all they care about is filling the beds and making as much money as possible. The system is set up one way and the mothers do not have an option in how they want to give birth. Numerous assumptions I believe have been made about the medical model in the United States compared to the model of midwifery. Those mothers who have considered midwifery said their experience was more natural and made them in touch with their baby. I think it is a connecting process when you are not drugged out and are able to grab your baby as it is coming out of you. I would be curious to see if there is a connection between a mother who has her baby as home and the relationship she has with her baby. In the movie, the midwife was saying that her service charged four thousand dollars compared to some hospitals that are thirteen thousand dollars. That statists alone should make a mother consider getting a midwife because sometimes mothers do not have the insurance to pay for all the hospital

Additionally, the movie starts off with Judith as a marriage counselor and having two clients. One of the clients is having second thoughts about her marriage. Judith simple tells her female client that she is making a huge mistake and she begins to tell her a story of a time she committed adultery. As Judith client listens to her story from beginning to end she realizes that she is making a huge mistake by committing adultery.

The documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest has a plot that truly seems like something off of a twisted horror movie. With sudden twist and turns, keeping up with the story is intriguing as you do not know what information is next to come. The documentary is presented in a way that kept me at edge of my sit, presented so that the full story is not given right away, rather piece by piece without specific order. In the opening of the film, I was confused as to why Gypsy Rose would kill her mother and it seemed as though it was just another average murder documentary. However, things quickly became interesting and the “victim” began to be stripped of her innocence. I felt truly sorry for Gypsy and I could only imagine how life was for her, being in the blind never truly understanding the situation. When you are taught and controlled in a certain way, that is what you know and for Gypsy what she knew was a horror story life style. The way the documentary portrayed this 48-year-old savage, made me gain anger towards her. How could someone be such a despicable human? Even her parents talked in such a negative manner of her. With that being said, everyone knew the type of manipulative human being she was, therefore, someone at some point of time should have tried harder to check on Gypsy who had to deal with this woman for countless years. The conclusion of the film displayed some hope however it is sad that her happy ending had to end with 10 years in prison.