Full transcript
0:02[Master Brasil and Ritmo Filmes]
0:09[Present]
0:12[Birth Reborn]
0:17[Michel Odent / Obstetrician]
0:50[Heloisa Lessa / Obstetric Nurse] In fact, we have accounts that childbirth in pre-agricultural civilizations was much simpler and much quicker.
0:57[Ricardo Jones / Obstetrician] The way we handle birth in contemporary, industrial societies is quite a new event‚
1:05if we take into account how long we've been on this planet.
1:11Nowadays childbirth in Brazil has become a surgical act instead of a physiological event.
1:16This model that we've created - centered on physicians, pathology and hospitals -
1:21is a model that has already run its course.
1:26[Marcio Garcia / Actor and Director] The world today is prone to putting you inside a room in order to get a c-section.
1:30I've come to see that as a fact.
1:32[Fernanda Macedo / Obstetrician] The amount you receive from health insurance does not make up for the appointments‚
1:34you had to cancel at your practice.
1:36You earn more money in an afternoon seeing patients than at a birth.
1:39Insurance companies and the hospitals have no interest in a woman that gives birth naturally.
1:45We have already reached a point in Brazil in which almost 50 percent of women deliver their children‚
1:50by way of major abdominal surgeries.
1:52Worse yet, certain groups within the Brazilian population, like the middle class‚
1:57have around 85 to 90 percent chance of having their children through cesarean birth.
2:04This is fundamentally a tragedy.
2:14The c-section is a wonderful surgery that saves lives every single day...
2:18but it should not be done to all patients under unnecessary circumstances before the onset of labor.
2:24Labor is in fact fundamental to a baby's birth...
2:28.and if we were to compare safety, which is something that every mother evidently seeks‚¶
2:34it is much safer. [Ricardo Chaves / Pediatrician]
2:36It's as if you were to do something as an artisan. You don't simply take your wife and throw her‚
2:40into a system that's like a childbirth assembly line, in which your child‚
2:44will be born when it suits someone's schedule.
2:47Here is what I want to know: did we make a deal with the baby that it would be born on Friday at 4 pm?
2:53And if so, did it confirm to us that it was ready to be born?
3:00This deal in an utter impossibility; this deal does not exist.
3:10The main player in childbirth has become the physician, man, and the product of this birth is the baby
3:16and the woman is a secondary by-product.
3:19In order for the contemporary obstetrical model to arise, it was absolutely necessary‚
3:23to create the idea that women were essentially incompetent and unfit‚
3:30to handle labor and birth on their own.
3:33[Flavia Menezes / Mother] I thought there was something wrong with me‚ that I would never be able to have a normal birth.
3:37[Andrea Nascimento / Mother] I had a c-section because I only ditated up to 2 cm. The baby could not go through.
3:42[Joana Prudente / Mother] Whenever talking to him and saying that I wanted a normal birth, I noticed he would bring up a series of misgivings.
3:49He came up with an issue each time, saying that maybe it would be best to schedule a c-section.
3:53Classical hospital birth is very violent;
3:58There's the cold, the way the child is manhandled, the noise, the light.
4:03[Laura Uplinger / Psychologist] it's such a huge shock that the first, powerful transition in life, comes with a stamp of violence.
4:09It is a bunch of gross mistakes, but the child comes out alive‚
4:15and everyone claps. It seems physician performed a miracle.
4:18Sorry, guys, but it was the woman who brought forth that life, and God is behind it all.
4:22[Andrea Santa Rosa Garcia / Nutrition Expert] I remember asking my physician "Is he ok?". Because I had told her that when my baby was born‚
4:27I wanted him to come to me, I wasn't happy with that c-section.
4:31And she was so insensitive; in such and important moment to me, she didn't respect that.
4:38Because it's just another one for her. It's different for her, it's just another birth.
4:44When Pedro was born, the woman that was going to give him his first bath‚
4:47grabbed him by the leg, like he was a piece of chicken, and I said. "Whoa, hang on!"
4:51She said: "Calm down, I do this every day." "But this is his first time", I said.
4:54"I don't care if you do this 20 times a day. My son's just born, he's mine and he's unique."
4:59I said: "I am not going through life without giving a normal birth."
5:06"I cannot miss out on this experience"
5:11And it was wonderful, it was a great experiente, and then came Nina.
5:20When I became pregnant with Felipe, I said: "Well, I've had a c-section, I've had a normal birth‚
5:26now that's all I need. I will give birth to Felipe at home."
5:32And the most appropriate place for a woman to give birth is, according to the World Health Organization‚
5:37where she feels safe. For many women, the safest place is their home.
5:43For others, the safest place is in a birth center.
5:46For another group of women, the safest place will still be a hospital.
5:49And all of these women must be included in our healthcare system.
5:53We are going through an unprecedented moment in the history of mankind.
6:15The use of synthetic oxytocin is so widespread, it's a drug that is present,
6:20in almost every birth.
6:37When we reach a point in which no woman gives birth vaginally‚
6:41just because of our society's utter incompetence in dealing with this phenomenon‚
6:45then it may be too late!
6:47What will become of our system of producing love hormones‚
6:52if they stop being used, if they become useless?
6:57What does that mean in terms of civilization?
7:11A film by Erica de Paula and Eduardo Chauvet
7:22Director of Photography - Rafael Morbeck
7:26Sound Design - Guilherme Negrao
7:34Research and Script - Erica de Paula
7:46Directed by Eduardo Chauvet
7:49Acknowledgements: ReHuNa (Network for Humane Labor and Birth) / Mila Lima / Dani Rico / Maternidad Clinica La Primavera (Ecuador)
7:55English Version (Translation - Clarissa Oliveira) (Revision - Claudia Chauvet)
7:59Motion Picture Premiere: March 2012