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Giving Birth
Featuring Obstetrician/Gynecologist Christiane Northrup, MD, FACOG, and author of the bestselling "Women's Bodies: Women's Wisdom."
Here's What People Are Saying About the Giving Birth Video
"I've been a birth educator and woman's advocate since
1964. This film comes as close as possible to putting forth
the depth, breadth and heights of labor and birth. It is a
timeless film."
—Harriet Palmer, CNM Midwife, and past Board Member of
ICEA and Lamaze International
"I have been a registered nurse in obstetrics for 14
years, including several years at a hospital that does more
than 7,000 birth a year. I have to say, I agree with every
single word in this film. I think that every woman and
family of childbearing age should see it, preferably before
they get pregnant."
—Janet Grabe, RNC, ASN, BSN, twice nominated for state
maternal/child nurse of the year
"This film shows what is possible for 95% of mothers and
babies, who can—and should—birth normally. It is a most
impressive and significant film for medical and nursing
students, residents, faculty and hospital staff—as well as
for young people, pregnant women and fathers-to-be. It will
help them all fathom the exquisite, built-in and behavioral
processes that are meant to occur naturally between a
mother and her baby during birth. These processes evolved
four hundred thousand years ago. They are still relevant
and should dictate our perinatal care practices today."
—Marshall Klaus, MD, American Academy of Pediatrics
award-winning Neonatologist, Researcher, Author of Care of
the High Risk Newborn, Mothering the Mother and Co-author
of Your Amazing Newborn
"I feel as if someone has just changed the direction of
my life forever."
—A young pregnant woman, after seeing Giving Birth in a
childbirth education class
"Spectacular photography, top-notch editing, riveting
information. This is one elegant package that will open the
eyes of expectant couples everywhere."
—Henci Goer, Lamaze instructor, author of Obstetrical
Myths versus Research Realities and The Thinking Woman's
Guide to a Better Birth
"Giving Birth is a compelling video that allows us to
enter into the mystery and miracle of birth."
—Angeles Arrien, PhD, Cultural Anthropologist, Author
of The Four-Fold Way and Signs of Life
"In this video we can experience birth in all its power
and meaning. This film will change hearts and minds. It is
a powerful portrayal of so many complicated and delicate
issues, weaving together the emotional, the international
and the political, and addressing a much-neglected issue in
a way that people can grasp it. Birth in the Western world
today has been stripped of its full meaning and stolen from
women and women have learned to take what they are
given."
—David Chamberlain, PhD, Psychologist, President of the
Association of Pre and Perinatal Psychology and Health
(APPPAH), and Author
"This is an amazing film. It made me feel I was right
there, living the experience. I can already think of so
many men that I know who need to see this."
—Thomas Metcalf, Father-to-be
"This brilliant film clearly shows us both what is wrong
with American birth and how to make it right."
—Robbie Davis Floyd, PhD Research Anthropologist, and
Author of Birth As An American Rite of Passage
"Health planners, public health workers, health care
workers—anyone concerned about the ways our babies are
being birthed—should view this video. The very human side
of the birth experience and the factual information that
Suzanne Arms presents should inform our policies."
—Jane Corinne, LMSW MPH Maternal & Child Health
Council, Taos County, New Mexico
"An inspiration to mothers and fathers and a powerful
tool for sensitizing health care professionals to the
opportunities for improving the most important event in the
lives of most families: birthing. I use it in teaching
faculty and residents for its ability to move people to a
new way of envisioning birth and infancy."
—Robert J. Massad, MD, Professor and Chairman
"Department of Family Medicine, Albert Einstein College
of Medicine, New York
The earlier a woman can see this in her pregnancy, the
better. For that will give her an opportunity to make the
changes she is likely to want to make once she has seen
it."
—Risa Lynn Klein, CBE, Birth Educator and Prenatal
Counselor
"Once again Suzanne Arms challenges the myths of
hospital safety and the routine use of technology, this
time in a powerful new film that presents home birth as the
standard of care. This film can be a forum for enlightening
the public regarding what we lose when we hand over
responsibility for this most sacred of human
experiences."
—Anne Frye, CPM Midwife and Author of Holistic
Midwifery
"This film calls on us to treat every pregnancy and
childbirth experience as unique, to support women and
babies with low-tech midwives, rather than high tech
medical interventions, and to recapture this fundamental
human experience of childbirth in a context of family and
friends—where it belongs. I hope this film will be widely
viewed by every couple contemplating a pregnancy, and in
high schools and colleges around the country, so it becomes
a catalyst for much needed change"
—George J. Annas, JD MPH Utley Professor and Chair of
Health Law Department, Boston University School of Public
Health
"This is a beautiful, moving, truthful—and hopeful—
depiction of birth that shows how it can be, how it should
be, how it must be. This film shows us how giving birth
back to the woman, and supporting her to value her own
ability to birth normally, will empower her to trust her
body, her competence, and her baby."
—Phyllis Klaus, MFCC LCSW Psychotherapist, Teacher and
Co-author of Your Amazing Newborn
"Giving Birth…uncovers the powerful and shaping
experience that giving birth is to women's development. In
Arms' model of normal birth, women are empowered to embrace
the full range of life experience without precipitous and
life-changing "rescue." Appropriate use of modern
technology is honored, while invasive use is exposed. The
truth about "typical" versus "normal" is revealed."
—Gayle Peterson, PhD psychologist, Author of Birthing
Normally and An Easier Childbirth, and columnist on
www.ParentsPlace.com.
"Doctors and nurses need to see this important and
inspiring film, as well as the general public, in order to
establish new practices at life's beginnings. It shows the
striking difference between what is normal, and what we
have come to accept as typical. Here is what birth can be
and what we all must strive for."
—Ellen Tattleman, MD Family Physician and teacher,
Director, Health in Medicine Project, Montefiore Medical
Center, New York City
"The more I watch this film the more impressed I am with
it. It's always a powerful experience for people in my
classes. Most are so deeply affected by it they cannot
speak about it until the following class. For many, just
seeing it once causes them to change. One woman, a lawyer
who had asked for a cesarean after being in labor many
hours, said that this video changed her life and made her
own her experience."
—Danielle Lambert, Certified Childbirth
Educator
"This is a clarion call to everyone who cares about the
future health of babies, which is the future health of the
world. It is a call to humanize birth, to empower women to
follow their own feelings and intuition about what is
right."
—Thomas Verny, MD Psychiatrist, Author, and Founder of
the Association for Pre- and Perinatal Health and
Psychology (APPPAH)
"Extremely moving, utterly powerful, this film cuts to
the core of the most crucial issues in childbearing."
—Elizabeth Davis, CPM Midwife and Author of Heart and
Hands
"This is a well-considered, balanced soft-edged piece
for gently awakening a sleeping generation. As a research
anthropologist and university professor I know that birth
trauma exists for many women in this culture—as well as
babies—and that it continues until it is healed because
women's rage, desperation and pain spill forth every time I
speak about it. Yet my students, who can offer serious
critiques of our culture's various social systems, seldom
show any curiosity about either our system of birth or the
story of their own birth until they see this video."
—Betty E. Cook, Lecturer in Anthropology, Sociology and
Women's Studies
"Many women who came of age in the 1960s and 70s
understood the value of normal birth and overcame enormous
obstacles to experience it. Normal birth was in the air.
Women inhaled it, and many sought the care of midwives. But
we failed to pass our knowledge, experience and valuing of
normal birth to the next generation of young women. In this
video Suzanne Arms uses still photos and live footage to
show the power and sacredness of birth—impossible to
explain with mere words—letting women and men know what
they are losing when they accept the substitute of a
medicalized (and often surgicalized) delivery."
—Judith P. Rooks, CNM, MPH, MS, Author of Midwifery and
Childbirth in America
"This video should be shown in high school sex education
programs everywhere. It promotes a healthy respect for
sexuality, family-centered approach to childbearing, father
involvement in birth and nurturing, and a "Say No to Drugs"
attitude toward birth that is important to newborns and
which young women should start to think about. In short, it
provides very positive role models for our young
people."
—Tracy Romm, EdD Principal, Roeper High School,
Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
"My son and German daughter-in-law watched this video 10
times before they returned to Germany, where they are going
to have a baby. Now they've decided to have a birth at home
with a midwife."
—Suzanna Alexander, Certified Doula
"One of my favorite moments was when the video was over,
the absolute silence in the room, followed by the
collective sounds of sniffles and tissues being brought out
to dry the eyes."
—From an evaluation at a national nurse-midwifery
conference
"A powerful, beautiful and moving film, well-researched
and firmly rooted in scientific evidence. It will enable
women to make positive choices and find the strength to
achieve their aims in birth."
—Sheila Kitzinger, Anthropologist and Author
"I am 42. Three days ago I found out I am pregnant with
my first baby. I would have been delighted, but I've been
consumed with fear as a result of being bombarded with
other peoples fears and what ifs about giving birth at my
age. As I watched this video my whole being softened. I now
feel powerful, knowing I can birth this baby
naturally."
—Debra Bryant, Sex Educator
"When I wanted o show my women's studies students a
video on childbirth and midwifery I previewed dozens of
videos. And this is the one I chose, because it presents a
well-rounded sense of the issues. Most women's studies
students have never considered childbirth to be a
significant feminist issue until they viewed this
video."
—Pam Vetro, PhD, Professor of Women's Studies
"I showed Suzanne's video to my partner's extended
family, all of whom are from Ecuador; his mother and
father, his brothers, brother's wife, cousins, friends.
Initially, the younger women didn't want to watch it with
the men, but all the men came in and we all ended up
watching it together."
—Pamela Kane, Student Nurse-Midwife
"Thank you, Suzanne Arms, from the bottom of my heart. I
had to fight so many policies, so many people, in order to
have two natural births in the hospital. So many times I
felt overwhelmed—even abnormal—for wanting a normal birth.
This video let me know that I was not alone and not wrong
in following my instincts. I plan to make it a gift to
every newly pregnant person I know."
—Tammy Appel, Mother
"This video is so artistically pleasing, the words so
packed with feeling, it pulled me right in. (And I watched
it in a crowded, noisy hall full of distractions.) Nothing
could pull me away from gazing at it and entering the
mystery."
—Sister Angela Murdaugh, FACNM, Midwife, Past President
ACNM and Director Holy Family BirthCenter
"Suzanne Arms has given us a powerful film of glorious
photography and important messages that captures the
strength, essence and beauty of women giving birth, and the
work of those of us who are privileged to be with
them."
—Helen Varney Burst, CNM, MSN, DHL (Hon.), FACNM,
Author of Varney's Midwifery and Professor, Yale University
School of Nursing
"Gently and firmly, like the best of midwives, this
video shakes students' unquestioned faith in the medical
model of birth and emboldens them to consider alternatives.
Unlike many birth films, this one places both mothers' and
babies' interests at the center and through eloquent words
and arresting images makes students aware of how important
are the events of our coming into the world for our
capacity to hope, trust and love. I recommend this film
highly for use in college classrooms."
—Robbie Pfeufer Kahn, PdD, sociology professor
"I showed this video to my entire family—my father, a
retired police officer; my mother, a secretary; my brother,
a fire fighter; his girlfriend, a high school teacher; my
brother-in-law, an EMT; and my 24 week pregnant sister. I
was nervous of their reaction. My sister said this was the
first positive thing she'd heard about birth except from
me. They all loved it, even my father, who thanked me the
next day for showing it."
—Jana Borino, Director, Florida School of Traditional
Midwifery
"If I had only 30 minutes to convey the essence of
normal obstetrics for training incoming labor and delivery
nurses, I would use the time to show them this film.."
—Fredda DeMast, RN, in-service nursing
coordinator
"This video conveys a simple, powerful message: women
know how to birth their babies. Factual, controversial,
inspiring, disturbing—this video will spark lively
discussion and self-examination of their values in all who
see it. At this time when the cost-effectiveness of
maternity care is being questioned, it reminds us to
restore birth to the true experts: women and their
midwives."
—Penny Simkin, author of The Birth Partner, co-author
of Pregnancy, Childbirth and the Newborn
"What exactly is a typical birth in the U.S.? I know
first hand. The birth in this film is everything my births
were not. Tears flowed freely as I watched in wonderment
the first time and cried even more the second time—tears of
grief for what could have been. There is a better way and
now I've seen it with my own eyes. This film should be
required viewing for all medical professionals, and it does
not bash hospitals or doctors."
—Betsy Gartrell-Judd, Managing Editor, Myria: The
OnLine Magazine for Mothers
"I've been in practice for 25 years and delivered 2500
babies. This is the best tool I've ever had as a midwife to
reach into people's hearts and transform their lives. It
wakes up an awareness in them that giving birth is sacred
and our babies are precious and how important the process
of giving birth is. It touches everyone at a very deep
level. I never get tired of watching it."
—Diane Smith, CPM, LM midwife, San Diego, CA
"As a father and a concerned human being, I applaud the
gift of this video—showing us how to bring children into
the world in a tender, respectful and non-violent way."
—Jack Kornfield, mediation teacher and author of "A
Path With Heart"
"Your video, "Giving Birth", is nothing less than
OUTSTANDING, a breath of fresh air. I have told many
friends about. I'm a 50-year old man who has recently
married for the first time. My wife is much younger and we
plan to have children soon. Your film is the guiding light
for us. You are changing the world by adding to the
physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing of newborns.
Thank you."
—Scott Kingsbury, prospective father,
Massachusetts