Now upon hearing this, my first instinct was that I wanted to die laughing, and quite frankly, the idea of having an orgasm during birth was a little unsettling to me. I remember when this documentary first came out, I was in college, nowhere near having children...and I was pretty closed minded when it came to this stuff. I remember thinking these women were somehow creepy or perverted. I mean who gets off to giving birth to their child? Birth isn't meant to be pleasurable...it's meant to be painful, right?
Years later, I know the thoughts I had back then were those of simply not understanding and feeling uncomfortable with something that wasn't the norm. My husband and I agreed to watch this together, and I was feeling open minded about it. I mean hey, if birth could feel as pleasurable as an orgasm, I say more power to the women who can do that! My expectations were that this documentary was going to be all about telling women how to achieve this orgasm, and showing how other women do it.
The documentary starts off by talking about how birth is a sexual experience, rather than a medical one. As a society, we tend to over sexualize everything, but with birth, it all goes out the window. We have sex to make a baby, so the idea of using some of the ideals to birth a baby are not far fetched. The main hormone involved in birth is oxytocin. This hormone is also involved in bonding with our babies and breastfeeding, but what a lot of people don't realize is that it is involved in sex and orgasm as well, and is what bonds us to our partner. In this documentary, a lot of the women were giving birth as a partnership. That is, their husbands were just as involved as they were, often times helping them to find which noise worked best through contractions, holding them, caressing them, going on walks, kissing between contractions, dancing in the bedroom with dimmed lights and candles. It was really beautiful, and many of these births yielded very relaxed women who had much quicker births, due to all this increased oxytocin.
One quote that was really memorable to me was a woman who talked about her decision to give birth outside on her deck. She talked about how being outdoors was blissful, and so she wanted her birth to be calm and blissful as well. I giggled a little when she said that the baby she was carrying was most likely conceived outside, so why not be born outside? She mentioned it was painful, but that it was pain with purpose, and that it was beautiful all at once. As she gave birth to her baby, her husband was rubbing her back and helping her through the entire process. It became very clear through this documentary that environment and comfort played a huge role in having a blissful birth.
After showing a few really cool birth stories, this document delves into the elephant in the room: hospitals do not present the best environment or options for having a blissful birth. While it is definitely still possible to have such in the hospital, this documentary touches on the interventions that are against our nature and overused. One fact that really hit home with me was how only 10% of the birthing population really needs any intervention in their birth, but we apply these standards to 100% of birthing women who enter the hospital. Being that I was one of the 10% when I gave birth, I can see the beauty in them, but I also have seen first hand how they are overused and studied a lot of evidence on why it is not beneficial to overuse them. This film does a great job at showing exactly how the cascade of interventions can lead to a horrid outcome, and I think it is something important for all women to see. However, at the same time, the film also stresses that we can't bond too much to our birth plans, because we will never know when that 10% will pop up and we will need them.
Ina May makes an appearance in this documentary, which can always only be a good thing! I love that woman and everything she stands for so much, and will be reviewing her book, Spiritual Midwifery as soon as I finish it.
The film continues to show some more women birthing in these wonderful, natural, beautiful environments and how blissful it is. There are a couple births that show intervention was needed, one was rather scary, but one was actually really beautiful.
I think overall, the message of this film is missed by skeptics, who take the title too literally. I won't lie, but a couple of the births were a little too orgasmic for my taste. If that's how those women can rock it, then more power to them, but I definitely don't want to get too far on the promiscuous side of sexual when I'm giving birth. All in all though, the message behind orgasmic birth is treating birth similar to an orgasm...not EXACTLY like it. One of the mothers said it was learning to deal with the uncomfortable sensations she was feeling, and embracing them with everyone who was around her. Another thing I loved about this film, was that it really emphasized that having supportive people present was important. One thing I was shocked to see was that most of these women giving birth looked just like me when I was giving birth. I never considered my birth to be orgasmic, simply because I did not have an orgasm while delivering my son. But the message is more about surrendering to the sensations of birth and accepting that the contractions can't be stronger than you because they ARE you...and then you will experience bliss...
Those who are shaking their heads no, and saying you definitely don't want to feel anything, there is a segment where one of the CPMs talks about how some women are more comfortable giving birth with an epidural, and that it needs to be an option, however we should not be shoving it down everyone's throats. This isn't one of those natural or bust films...it is simply encouraging women to find happiness in whatever way they choose to birth.
I know people don't view birth the same, but I could not agree more with this message. I truly view my first birth as a partnership between my husband and I. We also had two doulas present who helped us and filled in for my husband when necessary. It is definitely fitting to say that we need different things at different points in labor, and I'm glad I had all three of them for different reasons. At the end of the day when my son came into the world, my husband was just as tired as me. His arms were sore from pushing on my back and it really felt as if we truly worked together to bring this life into the world. It wasn't dirty, or promiscuous...but in a sense, could be categorized under the same umbrella as an orgasm, given the bliss that was felt in that partnership. (I think we need to think of the literal definition of an orgasm when watching this film, and that is that it is a release. There is no release more amazing than the feeling when a baby is finally born from your body! I can see why the term orgasmic was applied) My doulas encouraged this partnership, and it was a really beautiful and spiritual thing, even despite the interventions I'd had and the hospital environment I was in. I want to emphasize that, because women shouldn't feel they are made to have a one size fits all birth just because they are in the hospital.
One thing the film does emphasize and encourage, that I was very thankful for is that we need to share our birth stories. We need to claim this back as an empowering and positive experience. The evidence supports it, so there are no excuses.
I went into this film thinking women who experienced orgasmic births were a little off, and was left with the lasting impression that I in fact had an orgasmic birth, and I can't wait to have another one!
All in all, I recommend this documentary to women, especially those waiting to experience their first birth. The message is great, and I feel it is right up there with The Business of Being Born as far as being a great education tool. I found it on Amazon for $2. It was a 7 day rental, and money well spent! Go give it a watch, don't let the title hinder you and keep an open mind! You won't regret it.
Very interesting! I'll definitely have to see if I can find this documentary and check it out. It sounds peaceful.
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