BTW: This video is safe for work and all ages, totally PG. Have no fear, there is nothing graphic in this video. Also we’ve received requests for DVD copies of this video. Please email us for details, hello@ryanishungry.com.
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We first met Katherine and Todd through LocalHarvest.org as our closest Community Supported Agriculture provider. We quickly became interested in their story as small farmers trying to make a living growing food and selling it locally. Needless to say we started documenting work on their farm the week after we signed up for their CSA share. A month into taping, Katherine said “I hope this doesn’t affect the story, but I’m three months pregnant”. As you can see, it didn’t just affect the story, it helped us go deeper into it, focusing on the fact that they were planning a home birth.
Simply put, their labor and birth would be an assisted, at home process attended by Certified Professional Midwife Peggy Franklin and two assistants Aimee and Desiree, with no unnecessary interventions including pitocin, epidural, C-section, etc. CPMs and their assistants are highly trained to watch for danger signs before, during and after birth so they can swiftly assess if the mother and baby need to go to the hospital for any reason. Luckily, a large majority of healthy, low risk women giving birth naturally at home, with the assistance of midwives, have no reason to be transported to a hospital.
If you live in the United States, your choices for how, where and who can attend your birth, depending on your state of residence, may be very limited. Some states are still struggling to get certain Midwifery certifications to be legally recognized. See this state by state guide of legal status and resources on Citizens for Midwifery. Here is another chart on Midwives Alliance of North America. However, the American Medical Association claims that “…the safest setting for labor, delivery, and the immediate post-partum period is in the hospital, or a birthing center within a hospital complex”. As you might imagine, not everyone agrees with that statement. Especially since the World Health Organization says a healthy Caesarean rate should be between 5-10% and no more than 15%. The average rate in The United States has, since the 1960’s, creeped from below 5% to currently 30%.
While birthing centers within hospital complexes are often champions for uninterrupted labor and vaginal birth, in many places, including our rural part of Virginia, there are no birthing centers available. So the choices are limited to hospital or home. The Direct Entry Midwife credentials (midwives allowed to attend births outside a hospital like CPMs) are legally recognized in Virginia so home is openly an option, but for several states in the US, they are not.
With the recent premiere of Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein’s documentary The Business of Being Born, home birth and the practice of midwifery have been gaining more attention and popularity. We highly recommend this film as well as Ina May Gaskin’s books Spiritual Midwifery and Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth as good starting resources for learning about home birth. Also check out Child Birth Connection, International Cesarean Awareness Network and Pushed Birth Blog.
Big thanks to Katherine and Todd for letting us document and share their most intimate life moments. Also to Bekah Havens, Aimee Fairman and Kate Dimbleby and Rupert Howe for sharing their stories.
Runtime - 17:18
[tags] Cesarean section, child birth, home birth, midwife, midwifery, natural birth, thebusinessofbeingborn, ryanishungry, Virginia[/tags]
Special and so very good. What a beautiful video.
Yay! Congratulations Katherine, Todd and Elliot!
This is a fantastic film.
I hope that lots of parents and professionals find it and use it.
Great work.
Congratulations to Katherine & Todd for making a fabulous baby and congratulations to you for making a fabulous video! You managed to take a blazing hot topic and produce a well-paced, informative, non-inflammatory video about it. No easy feat!
You guys are consummate professionals.
Well-edited, well-interviewed, well-everythinged!
What a wonderful video, thanks for doing it!
Meta Q: what screen capture software did you use for the iChat sessions and what was that process like?
Thanks again!
Thank you Ryanne and Jay for creating this beautiful video! It is a testament to the strength of women and the safety of homebirth midwifery care. I love Katherine’s message: how important and wonderful it is to be in control of your birth…to own it. I am so happy for this sweet family that they had the birth they were dreaming of. It was an honor to be a part of their birth team.
Peace and Love,
Aimee
hi joe
we used Skype and Ecamm Call Recorder for the mac. it costs a couple bucks, but is a great tool to have.
cheers!
An inspiring and informative piece of work!
Great, thanks Ryanne!
Very nice video, very well done…I really loved how you involved Bekah and Rupert and Kate….another testment to how cool the web can be, that through all this, we can share knowledge and experiences…well done….
And on a strickly personal and selfish note….Jay and Ryanne are back making videos!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I completely agree with Bekah: well-everythinged! And with Heath: Jay and Ryanne are back making videos!!! Yeah!!
We’ve been through 3 births, and worked with midwives in 3 different locations (The Netherlands, Philadelphia,PA, and Burlington, Vermont). For our first 2 kids, we did most of the prenatal care in the Netherlands (where the majority of the births are handled by midwives), and then we had the kids at a birthing center (http://www.thebirthcenter.org/) outside of Philadelphia, with midwives there. Our third kid was born in Vermont and we worked with a great midwife there as well. All of our experiences have been wonderful, and I don’t think there is a midwife on this planet who is not an incredible person. We always wrote up a birth plan (our ideal birthing situation), and everyone always attempted to make it as close to that as possible, even in our second birth, which was in a hospital because of some bleeding (low-lying placenta). The hospital experience was not ideal, but the midwife took charge while we were there, and allowed us (as long as everything was ok) to have the birth we wanted. She even protected us a bit, I think. I was an active participant (as active as a man can be in the event) in all the births and caught all 3 kids, and cut all their cords. It’s a very intimate experience, and midwives are very in tune with everything that makes birth so amazing. Needless to say, we’re PRO PRO PRO midwife.
Thank you Ryanne and Jay for the wonderful documentation of our home birth. This will be something our family will be able to cherish for the rest of our lives. I think this video will be great for anyone who is thinking about having a home birth and hopefully shows them the control they can have from using a mid wife and having a home birth. Cheers to the both of you for helping put our lives on screen.
I have been helping babies into the world for 30 years this July and living on an organic farm with my timber framer/farmer husband. All this video internet ability is so new to me but I LOVED taking a few minutes to watch your wonderful birth story and thinking about what a remarkable message you are sending to so many other folks.
Thanks
Jane
What a beautiful process and document! Well done!Thanks for sharing it!It is now proudly posted to my FB.I had 7 home deliveries, two of those being water births, like yours. Water in labor is totally natures epidural, it takes the edge off.I wish more woman could experience how natural and normal homebirth really is.
Thank you! We are planning our homebirth for any day now. It was so reassuring to see not just one, but two healthy natural homebirths. I hope to be another success story. This video makes me wish I had cats!
Like Katherine & Todd, we chose to have our baby at home last winter, and like them we had a wonderful water birth with kitties in attendance. We both agree that homebirth was the best decision we’ve ever made. Bringing my daughter peacefully into this world was so fantastic, and afterwards my midwife’s apprentice fed me my mother’s spaghetti! I couldn’t have done it without the unwavering positive encouragement I got from my birth team, and now that I’m on the other side of it I am working to get CPMs licensed in my home state (Iowa) so that more women have the opportunity to have a great birth experience like mine.
Absolutely beautiful…I’m so happy to know these people. They will be great parents. Welcome to life lil one….
Wow! I ran across this article on Facebook. I am a midwife and involved with midwifery politics and I see a lot of blog posts come my way. Kudos, big kudos for getting right the terms, concepts, and ideas that underpin American families’ desires for the best maternity care model available in a concise and accurate post. I have seen many a big mainstream news outlet mangle, mash, or outright sensationalize families quest for the best evidence based care possible.
I will be adding your blog to my reader and look forward to more rational coverage of sensible and sustainable personal and community choices.
My wife and I went with a birthing center with both our kids. Mid-wife, a non-hospital room, all-natural. It was great, but with the added support of a hospital if anything happened. Nothing did. Labor for each was like 6 hours. And it was an amazing experience. My wife was born at home and really wanted to do a home birth, but I was concerned because a friend of mine had a pretty dangerous situation with a home birth. They didn’t have the back-up plans in place. The important message is that with the right preparation, the calm and focus of being at home is so much better for all involved. Especially the mother.
Great video. Very inspiring.
Ryan and Jay, I just loved watching this video about your friends and their home birth. It was totally informative, real, and beautiful to watch. Thanks for doing this!
Wow! Thank you so much for doing this video. And thanks to the delightful young parents for allowing something so intimate and personal to be put out there to inform and inspire other young parents-to-be.
Love to you and Jay,
Maureen
Thanks Ryanne and Jay for a very well documented DIY birth! Of course, congratulations Katherine and Todd. And welcome to the planet, Elliot!
I really enjoyed watching this video. I almost said participating in this video. That’s what it felt like! In particular, I liked the way you did not adhere to a linear chronology but cut to the baby stills and then went back the narrative. It told the viewer that we are not going to string you out with a “story” until the very end with some kind of contrived pay-off. And, of course, I appreciated the use of the chats on the net. It not only made the video interesting, but pushed for new uses for interactive use of video.
Good job *everyone*.
And it’s nice to see new videos from you. Seems as if it’s been a while.
This film appeals to me because although it advocates a point of view, its narrative devices remain free of “toss-off” assertions and narrow advocacy. Instead, the film uses first person narrative and experiential observation. I believe that the excessive use of c-sections in the USA is a real issue, albeit an issue for which alternatives other than a home birth solution may also be available.
Yet though my own ideas may not align completely with your narrators’ ideas here, the gentle power of their (and your) presentation makes this a very effective film.
The set of images surrounding the birth are just wonderful–that sense of quiet miracle, of ineffable biology. Thank you for making this film–and for using my songs as well as those of the wonderful Teru.
Hey Ryanne and Jay
What an awesome video you did of the home birth of Katherine and Todd. One of the best guests you can give. Here in this county we have not had births in over 20 years and it is unconceivable when you think of it. Kind of like Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. We all have been silent to long on those things that are our birthright such as wholesome food, sustainable practices, spirituality, our country and so much more. From the cradle to the grave we need to take back and re-claim our lives again. Thanks so much for the video and was looking and some of your sites of vlogging of Michael Verdi and yourself and looks like fun. I need to create a webpage myself. Peace always.
Joy Lorien from SS
fantastic work! I really enjoyed this!
Very Well Done. Thanks for your sharing your beautiful birth. Signed, Aspiring Student Midwife
Beautifully done! I am pregnant with my 7th baby and have had 4 homebirths so far. You really captured well the wonderful simplicity of homebirth and the sense of control you have without coming across as angry. I had the pleasure of having both Aimee and Peggy attend my last birth and will say also that they exemplify well what Aimee referred to as the “Lifeguard” role. Aimee’s beautiful smile as she held your moments old baby is what I love most about midwifery. Congratulations and thanks for giving me a resource to share!