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Filed under: Life & style, In the news, Home remediesActress and talk show host Ricki Lake recently released a documentary about home birth, titled The Business of Being Born. The film's website sums up the project this way: "Birth is a miracle, a rite of passage, a natural part of life. But birth is also big business. . . . The film interlaces intimate birth stories with surprising historical, political and scientific insights and shocking statistics about the current maternity care system." The film includes footage of Lake's home birth.This week, members of the American Medical Association spoke out against the film, endorsing a resolution by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists that asserts that the safest place for a woman to give birth is in a "hospital, or a birthing center within a hospital." The resolution warns of various complications during a birth, including "maternal hemorrhage, shoulder dystocia, eclampsia or other obstetric emergencies" which would require immediate medical care not available during a home birth.Lake is angry about the criticism, saying that "It feels like a personal attack." The point of her film, she says, was not to encourage women to have home births but to provide them with a full range of information about birthing options. "I can't imagine they are scared everyone will have a home birth because I did." Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Posted on Wed, 18 Jun 2008 10:04:00 EST at http://www.parentdish.com/2008/06/18/doc...rth-movie/
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