5 Women 5 Births

Description

INSTRUCTIONS FOR VIEWING your video purchase:
Once you have paid for the video:

1. Birthing the Future® will send a link to the email we have on file for you. It will say, specifically, that your order is now complete.  If you cannot locate the file, check your spam folder. (If you are on a Mac, it may go into your “promotions” folder.)
2. Click on that email file. A small text file (denoted by a series of 9 numbers) will download into your Download folder.
3. Do not double click on this file. It will just open an empty window in your browser. Instead, open this file in any text editor (such as MS Word, or Text Edit on a Mac).
4. Once this file opens you will see the word “play” at the top of that document. Click on it and, like magic, a window from Vimeo will open your film.

NOTE: Don’t discard this file because you will need it to view the film as often as  you wish.

*****

This unique 30-minute documentary film is in black and white, consisting of still photos and voiceovers of 5 women who candidly share the intensely personal stories of their births and their feelings afterward as they look back on those experiences. It shows the transformative potential of birth as well as the importance of making decisions throughout, rather than allowing others to make decisions for them.

The 5 women shown made different choices for their births – hospital, home, vaginal, cesarean, and vaginal after cesarean. It depicts the challenges many women face during labor, as well as obstacles created by a hospital system that is not designed to respect birthing women or to support the natural physiological process of labor.

We see the need for a birthing woman to have an advocate with her during labor in the hospital, what it takes for a woman to stand up for her and her baby’s needs; and we get a sense of the impact their decisions and experiences have had upon their lives as mothers and their relationship with their baby.

NOTE: Don’t be fooled by the “look” of this film. Hairstyles and clothing may look dated; but the stories have much to teach about what it means to give birth “consciously”, about human rights in birth, personal power, choice and responsibility. Despite the many changes we’ve seen and experienced in recent decades, it’s amazing and disturbing how little has changed over the decades when we bring babies into the world in hospitals. Because Arms created the film from black and white still photographs, it is especially useful for showing to audiences who are sensitive to nudity.

The photos are by Suzanne Arms