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'The Business of Being Born'

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BY JOHN ANDERSON

January 11, 2008

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Home birth and midwifery are the type of ideas that seem great in the abstract - as in, for other people. But one can easily imagine that when push comes to shove (no pun intended) most women would guiltily opt for a nice, clean, fully equipped, drug-happy hospital over a baby pool in the living room.

But director Abby Epstein's mission in "The Business of Being Born" is explaining that our assumptions about safety - and even infant mortality - have been manipulated by insurance companies and the medical industry and that home births are not just psychically sounder, but usually safer as well.

While following a group of pregnant New Yorkers around (including executive producer Ricki Lake), Epstein also interviews traditional doctors, nurse-midwives and home-birth experts, asking why a process used in 70 percent of births in Europe and Japan is used in less than 8 percent here. Epstein's opinion on the issue is never in doubt and once the attitude of the film is established, it seems to make the same points repeatedly. Fortunately, Epstein herself gets pregnant, and she gets to test her own theories.

THE BUSINESS OF BEING BORN (unrated). 1:27 (nudity, birth). At the IFC Center, Manhattan.