Birth Films

This week I watched portions of the DVD Birth as We Know It with some friends again. I figured it made sense to include some birth film reviews on this blog as well. I actually reviewed this film for CfM News, so I'm not going to share too much of my review here until the issue is published.
My conclusion is that this is a lovely film and though I have some reservations about showing the entire educational edition due to the "new agey" voiceover content, some of the birth footage has been a powerful addition to my work with birth.

We also watched Relaxation, Rhythm, & Ritual: The Three R's of Childbirth by Penny Simkin. I like to show this video for good examples of labor support & different coping strategies. I also like to show it because it shows a lot of labors and births in a very manageable length of video time (15 minutes) and because most of the births are in the hospital--much as I prefer homebirth, the reality is that most births in the US take place in the hospital and so this video speaks to the reality of most of the women viewing the video (does that make sense?). If I show videos that only focus on homebirth, they may think, "this doesn't apply to me" or, "must be nice, but I need to go to the hospital." This video shows what can actually be done in a hospital setting--coping techniques, using the shower even with a saline lock in your arm, etc. I highly recommend this film!

On 11/26/07, I posted more about the three R's on my birth blog.