Ricki Lake
On her "good divorce" and very revealing home-birth documentary.
by Sara Cardace
May 2, 2007
Erstwhile talk-show host extraordinaire Ricki Lake's engrossing new documentary, The
Business of Being Born,
weighs the risks and benefits of having a midwife-assisted natural birth rather
than delivering in a hospital with doctors and drugs on hand. The film isn't
exactly neutral on the subject — it's easy to come away with a terror of
hospitals — but
the footage of blissed-out, drug-free new mothers and their no-nonsense midwives
makes a strong case for an experience
that's often dismissed as crunchy or unconscionably risky.
Babble spoke with the newly
single
mother of two and her director, Abby Epstein (whose own pregnancy progressed
over the course of the film), about making such a personal movie, giving birth
the old-fashioned
way and the challenges of being a working mom in Hollywood. — Sara
Cardace
How did the idea for your new film, The Business of Being Born, come about?
Ricki: Well, I had two very different birth experiences, and the second
one was at home. After the first birth, I felt intrigued to learn about midwifery,
and ended up using a midwife for my second one. I'm so fascinated by the profession,
and all the misinformation that's out there about midwives. My second son's birth was something I
researched for a long time, and then I had this birth experience that was so
positively transformative.
Honestly, my first instinct was that I wanted
to be a midwife, that I had this calling. But then
Director Abby Epstein with Ricki Lake in a scene from The Business of Being Born.I realized that I was
probably better off being an advocate for them, and talking about the birth
system, and what better way to do that
than with a film? Abby and I had worked together previously on The Vagina
Monologues,
no pun intended, and we'd gotten friendly. So I ran the idea by her and gave
her some books to read by Ina May Gaskin and Robbie Davis-Floyd. I was so
inspired by them. Abby said, "I think we really have something here."
If there's one thing you'd like for women to take away from the movie, what would it be?
Ricki: I think Abby and I are both on the same page about this — I want to empower women and educate women so that they can make the best choice for them. We're not telling women, "Oh, you should do this. I had a home birth so you should too." I think today's modern woman needs to know what the true statistics are and what the risks are, both for a natural, unmedicated birth and for a hospital one.
Ricki, you're an especially interesting study for pregnant women who
are in the process of deciding what kind of birth they'd like to choose,
because you've given birth both in a hospital, with drugs, and at home, in
a bathtub. How were the experiences different?
Ricki: Both of them were positive experiences because I was able to
have two healthy children, both vaginally, so I feel like they were equally
successful. But for the second one, I was in control of my body. I was in control
of every decision that needed to be made, whether it was who was there, how
many people I had with me, where I went into labor, there were no restraints.
I found that to be . . . I don't want to say . . . well, yes, it was better
for me. I felt empowered and changed in a positive way from doing
it on my own terms.
©2007 Sara Cardace and Nerve Media
About the Author
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Sara Cardace is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in New York Magazine, the Washington Post, and Interview. The baby pictured at left does not belong to her. |
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