Update on Pregnant in America Movie

[Redifer]

Email received:

Dearest Friend,

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

One year ago, I found out my wife was pregnant. I was not going to let her become a victim of our nationÕs childbirth system. I decided to make this movie.

In the last few days we have received hundreds of emails from people like you who are ready for a change. I would like to thank you for sharing your stories with us. Some are inspiring, some deeply saddening, while others are informative and thought provoking. And all are important. There are many, many voices out there that need to be heard, and many stories that need to be listened to.

That is why we decided to launch a new website which is being built right now. We hope to add something new each day until completed, so keep logging on. The website will have sections to share birth stories, gain information, post comments, communicate with us, communicate with each other, and even upload videos of births. We will use the website to communicate to all of you about release dates, previews and updates on what is happening with Pregnant in America. Perhaps most powerfully, PregnantInAmerica.com will act as a catalyst for our message and a launching pad for our movement. My father used to say, ÒHe who shouts the loudest is always heard.Ó LetÕs get ready to shout real loud.

A lot of you have been wondering how and when Pregnant in America will be released. Our goal is to premier at The Sundance Film Festival and have a major distribution company release Pregnant in America theatrically worldwide. The paradigm shift must happen on a cultural level; the worlds most powerful and influential celebrities, Hollywood executives and difference makers go to Sundance. We intend on being there, January 2008.

Many of you are asking how you can help:

1. Keep being youÉkeep moving forwardÉyou are making a difference.

1. Visit PregnantInAmerica.com often, email EVERYONE YOU KNOW about Pregnant in America.

1. Make whatever contribution you can afford or feel is right for you. (We are not a large production team and we need your contribution to make a difference.)

1. Always remember what my father said, He who shouts the loudest, is always heard.Ó

With Passion,
Steve Buonaugurio
Producer and Director Ð Pregnant in America

[Synchro246]

I've always wanted to go to sundance. It's near my sister too--hmmm I might just be planning a trip in the fall

[UUMom]

The majority of babies need to be born at home! Why do people blindy choose hospital births when homebirth has been a big force for at least 30 years?

(and I am not talking about emergency transfers! I am talking about women who read while pregnant and yet still 'love their doctors' --and think he will be the one in a thousand who respects her wishes and comforts her when she feels afraid and doesn't take a knife to her uterus or perineum). If we leave birth to the hospitals and forget our power, birth is treated as pathology.

Women need to take it back.

[cheeseRjedi]

I can't wait to see this movie.

[dynamicdoula]

I just watched this trailer and I have grave concerns. I've been reading some posts on some of the blogs I read, med students and physicians and there is a large uproar from those who've seen the trailer. I don't know how the doulas/midwives are reacting to it.

I am fearful of what this movie has to say and how it says it, standing with one foot in each 'world', as I am.

Here is my fear: I am concerned that this will cause more divisiveness than anything. It will make home/unmedicated birthers look even more like masochistic freaks to the mainstream, and it will put the medical establishment on the DEEP defensive. 95+% of women in my local hospital are getting epidurals. *I*, homebirth advocate, unmedicated birth advocate, am the minority. I am the one who will be even further marginalized after the wider public gets a view of this video. Lines will be drawn even blacker, and thicker in the sand. This will NOT make our work easier. It will not.

We should be encouraging parties to sit together at the round table. I have a lot more to say but.... I think I'll leave it there. We should be encouraging a team effort, encouraging medical students doing OB rotations to follow a midwife for part of their rotation. To attend birth as a support person at LEAST one time! We should be looking for solutions *together*. I have great fear about how angry both sides of this issue will become after this video does it's work.

I wish I had an alternative idea, or answer, or suggestion. I have a lot of fantasies, and maybe this step is better than NO step at all. I just have concerns about the aftermath.

[dynamicdoula]

removed

[erin_brycesmom]

Here is my fear: I am concerned that this will cause more divisiveness than anything. It will make home/unmedicated birthers look even more like masochistic freaks to the mainstream, and it will put the medical establishment on the DEEP defensive. 95+% of women in my local hospital are getting epidurals. *I*, homebirth advocate, unmedicated birth advocate, am the minority. I am the one who will be even further marginalized after the wider public gets a view of this video. Lines will be drawn even blacker, and thicker in the sand. This will NOT make our work easier. It will not.

That is an understandable concern. It is hard to say, but I got the impression from the trailer that the movie is fairly balanced. I guess time will tell. The film maker's wife does end up in the hospital with their baby in the NICU. Honestly what you are talking about is the least of my fears. I'm slightly worried that the movie would turn people off to homebirth because of the "when things go wrong". Hopefully it won't. I just can't really think one way or another yet, but I do think the film needs to be shocking if it is going to grab people's attention. The current state of childbirth IS shocking so the movie doesn't have to over dramatize in order to achieve that.

[Synchro246]

Kristina, I think you should voice your feedback/concerns with the filmakers.

I think it all depends on how the movie is made. Super size me actually caused some changes in Macdonalds. This has the potential to do the same--to make consumers want something different and to make the providers alter their services accordingly.
I think this movie needs to show a lot of stuff comparing our atrocious maternal/neonatal mortality rates with those of other industrialized nations and it needs to talk about the way those nations "do" birth.
Us natural birthers may be in the minority in America, but we aren't the minority the world around.

[zoebird]

i think that the medical establishment has a major, major, major propoganda machine that's been in motion since before the advent of the 20th century. during this time, this machine has sought to marginalize anything that would remove some of it's power (culturally) and money. the treatment of chiropractice care, for example, over the last 150 years or so is an excellent example of this.

this same organization has marginalized natural birth to the extreme and continues to do so. it seems to me that they have no interest in a 'round table' discussion OR those groups would be here, talking about the issues and not issuing statements to the mainstream about how hospitals are safest or teaching doctors how to coerce people into the hospital and into various procedures with scare tactics and related. those doctors who do not comply (like one here in PA) are forced to leave hospitals, and often the state, because they do not bring in enough revenue for the hospital by supporting natural birth. even those doctors are marginalized by this massive propoganda machine that is mostly about power and money, and not about health and safety.

a round table may come eventually, but it really isn't possible until more people know the truth about these powerful influences and interests in the birthing industry, and the realities of natural birth.

there is a place for doctors, for midwives, for doulas. there is a need for them. but it's not so great a need that 30% of american women need ceasarean sections, that everyone woman needs to be monitored throughout pregnancy and birth.

when the propoganda machine wants to pipe down and start looking at the real health issues of their processes and ideaologies surrounding birth, then we can have a 'round table.' until then, it's going to be devisive because that machine and those interests make it devisive. they have a heck of a lot to loose.

[rajahkat]

mmm hmm. I agree with zoebird, the medical establishment isn't going to be involved in any round table discussions the way things are now. Why would they? They have nothing to GAIN by negotitiations.

I just read something somewhere (it may have been here) about how you can't move toward a more balanced middle without the uproar caused by the "extreme" factions of the arguement.

I'm not sure this movie will even qualify as "extreme".....does it delve into uc at all?

I'm excited and interested to see it though.

Kat

[pinksprklybarefoot]

Something my homebirth midwife talked about during our initial interview really stuck with me. I studied political science in college, so my thought has always been "If you don't like something, lobby for legislation." I thought it was completely ridiculous that homebirth was not covered by most insurance companies. I asked her why midwives and people wanting homebirths didn't pressure to legislation mandating coverage of homebirth. She told us that there was a fear of a backlash. When homebirth midwives operate quietly and under the radar, the medical community can forget about them a little. A public debate could just as easily result legislation making assisting homebirth illegal. She said that the homebirth community had yet to come to a consensus as to whether the risk was worth it. It is sad that it has to be that way, but it would be horrible to lose midwife-assisted homebirth as an option.

[Full Heart]

I agree with zoebird. I don't think the medical establishment has any desire to sit down with the Natural birth community/hbers. What with the ACOG just releasing that statement so stealthfully that no birth should take place outside of a hospital. Its the consumers that have to push for change, and consumers can't push for change if they aren't educated that there are choices. Which I hope the movie does. Is educate people that there are choices, that the medical establishment isn't the end all that people think it is.

[cottonwood]

"you can't move toward a more balanced middle without the uproar caused by the "extreme" factions of the arguement."

That's a very good way of putting it and I agree. There needs to be a huge paradigm shift for any meaningful change to take place, and that won't happen with polite talking. The medical establishment is invested in keeping their machine running; they could care less about the movement to normalize birth. The only thing that is going to create change is if more consumers and medical professionals become educated and outraged and begin refusing to participate.

I have some serious concerns about the film though. First, I am really afraid that it is going to be sensationalistic and not fact-based. Second, I am really afraid that the filmmaker is less on our side than we think he is, that he does not understand the depth of the problems with the medical model of birth, and that he is really actually in favor of institutionalized/managed birth but thinks it's out of control due to monetary conflicts of interest. Just judging from the trailer, it could go either way.

[rajahkat]

"he is really actually in favor of institutionalized/managed birth but thinks it's out of control due to monetary conflicts of interest"

This is the impression I get as well. Perhaps unaware of the iceberg beneath him, so to speak.

"I asked her why midwives and people wanting homebirths didn't pressure to legislation mandating coverage of homebirth. She told us that there was a fear of a backlash."

Yes, it's difficult to know before hand whether legislation will be a good thing or a bad thing in the end. Here in FL, where homebirth midwives are covered by insurance (and medicaid) I feel the result has been that the midwives are under a heavy thumb. And actually BECOMING a midwife, well, it's all become very medical and the traditional method of apprenticing seems to have disappeared.

I think I tend to have more of a keep-my-head-down-don't-draw-attention-so-I-can-do-what-I-want mentality when it comes to legislation and government. I LOVE the idea of getting information out to PEOPLE though, I'm happy to raise a stink when it comes to people being able to make informed decisions for themselves.

[jennica]

I think this movie is for consumers, and hopefully it will present both sides of the issue with the consumer's best interests in mind. People don't make documentaries for the benefit of the people who the documentaries are meant to expose! Super Size Me wasn't made in order for McDonalds to watch it and see the error of their ways and change, it was made so that consumers of McDonalds food would watch it and stand up and demand change (which is what happened). Doctors and Nurses, Midwives and Doulas, no matter how good of people they may be, or how much they may understand birth, or what their reasons are for getting into the profession, the fact of the matter is they all make money off of childbirth. The movie doesn't look like it was made to promote the interests of people who make money off of childbirth. It looks like it was made to inform consumers of how money is being made off of them at the sacrafice of safety and their best interests. Consumers need to know this. If consumers knew this, they may demand change, and that is the only way things will ever change on a large scale. Midwives and Doulas sitting down with OB's will never accomplish a thing. Most OB's, or doctors in general, have zero respect for midwives, doulas, and women who choose natural birth. They have so much disdain for them that when a homebirthing woman transfers to a hospital she is treated horribly by the entire staff just to punish her for her decision to homebirth. Some women who want natural births in hospitals are punished for not taking drugs and being a good little patient. Doctors and nurses who would treat a laboring woman the way that the majority do, are not people who are going to sit down at a round table and talk about making it a better experience for the woman and baby. They think that the thing that will make it a better experience is drugs, and they are already offering that. The only thing that can change this situation, in my opinion, is exposing it to the public. Educating the public. And getting people to choose alternative care, or refusing unecessary procedures, so that money is taken out of the hands of the hospitals and doctors. Midwives and doulas aren't making the big bucks on birth the way hospitals and doctors do, and generally care for their patients in a more compassionate manner (not that no doctors are compassionate, I'm just speaking in generals). I really hope that comes through in the film. If it does, I don't see how that could be a bad thing for midwives or doulas.

[velcromom]

I think it's true that the pendulum must swing to the height of the arc both ways before it settles in the middle. If this film helps that process along then more power to it. We may not like every little detail about how it contributes but if overall consumers become more aware, that is a positive change. Changing attitudes in this climate is so hard, I don't think that at this point we are far enough along that we can be awfully critical of how it happens. We will anyhow of course, being that's just part of the process, and if we feel this film misses the mark, perhaps it will inspire someone else to take it a step further - and they will be able to do so more successfully because of this film pushing the pendulum that much higher.

[kdabbler]

The link to the movie trailer was just forwarded to me from another list.

I welcome a movie that questions the high rates of cesareans in the US as I feel that many are done by physicians fearing malpractice as well as insurance company guidelines. A sensational documentary may open the dialog between consumer and industry as it did with Supersize Me.

[shell024]

Did anyone else notice the spelling of "industrialized"?

[Kat_shoshin]

My DH noticed the spelling... and I was already having trouble with "Complications are CAUSED by interventions."

Not always - I don't get why this movie has to so over the top about the issue rather than just presenting the FACTS.

It leaves us questioning everything else in the trailer.

That line and the spelling mistake have left me hesitant to show the trailer to anyone else.

[Jimibell]

Originally Posted by velcromom

I think it's true that the pendulum must swing to the height of the arc both ways before it settles in the middle. If this film helps that process along then more power to it. We may not like every little detail about how it contributes but if overall consumers become more aware, that is a positive change. Changing attitudes in this climate is so hard, I don't think that at this point we are far enough along that we can be awfully critical of how it happens. We will anyhow of course, being that's just part of the process, and if we feel this film misses the mark, perhaps it will inspire someone else to take it a step further - and they will be able to do so more successfully because of this film pushing the pendulum that much higher.

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