Ricki Lake delivers scary birth documentary

By Michael Rechtshaffen

PALM SPRINGS (Hollywood Reporter) - Apparently Prissy from "Gone With the Wind" isn't the only one who don't know nothin' about birthin' babies.

From the perspective of "The Business of Being Born," an eye-opening look at maternity in America, the nation's hospitals and insurance companies place a close second.

Initiated by executive producer Ricki Lake and directed by Abby Epstein, this investigation of contemporary childbirth "management" is in many ways "The Inconvenient Truth" of obstetrics, not to mention a convincing endorsement of midwifery.

A close-up and personal film, in which several of its subjects -- including Lake -- allow the camera to capture their chosen methods of delivery in indisputably intimate detail, "The Business of Being Born," screened at the Palm Springs International Film Festival ahead of a limited theatrical run (it will be offered by Netflix in February), is a must-see for any woman who's pregnant or planning to have kids.

At first glance, the notion of deliberately giving birth outside of a hospital (as Lake did in 2001, in her bathtub with her second child) might seem to be a risky proposition.

But then come all the disturbing questions:

- Why does the U.S. have the second-worst newborn death rate in the developed world?

- Why are more than 40% of the deliveries done in some New York hospitals all Cesarean sections?