The Business of Being Born

The Business of Being Born
The Business of Being Born
Directed by	Abby Epstein
Produced by	Abby Epstein; Paulo Netto; Amy Slotnick; Ricki Lake
Cinematography	Paulo Netto
Edited by	Madeleine Gavin
Music by	Jason Moss (as Supersonic Music); Andre Pluess
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release date	January 9, 2008;
Running time	87 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

The Business of Being Born is a 2008 documentary film that explores the contemporary experience of childbirth in the United States. Directed by Abby Epstein and produced by Ricki Lake, it compares various childbirth methods, including midwives, natural births, epidurals, and Cesarean sections.^[1]

Content

The film criticizes the American health care system with its emphasis on medicines and costly interventions and its view of childbirth as a medical emergency rather than a natural occurrence.^[2] Lake drew inspiration for the documentary from the disappointing experience she had had with the birth of her first son, Milo Sebastian Sussman.^{[citation needed]}

The film documents actual home births and water births, including in the latter category that of Lake's own second son, Owen Tyler Sussman. They follow a midwife, Cara, in New York City as she takes care of and attends several births. They then give the audience several statistics about our current birthing techniques and challenge today's doctors. Many experts are interviewed and they cite a multitude of reasons for these, such as the overuse of medical procedures in the interest of saving time.