DOCUMENTARY FEATURE FILM
by Jo Hunter, Jerusha Sutton, Zoe Naylor and Selina Scoble
BIRTH TIME - Reclaiming women’s birth rights! Our maternity system is broken. We have a postnatal depression epidemic, with su***de being the leading cause of maternal death in the developed world. Birth trauma is rampant. We have incredibly high intervention rates in birth, around the world, yet this is not leadi
ng to better outcomes for mothers and babies. We are losing connection from one of the most powerful, primal and pivotal things we will ever do in our lives. We live in a time where it is has become normal to disregard the importance of a woman’s experience of birth. Our birth and birthing experience largely impacts the way we navigate the world. Isn’t it time that women felt powerful and trusting around their bodies and the birthing process rather than afraid? Isn’t it time that we opened conversations and shared information that meant that women and their partners didn’t go into birth in the dark and full of fear? Isn’t it time that women were guided more confidently towards choosing natural birth as their first port of call? Whether they choose to birth at home or in a hospital. What would it mean if all women, regardless of their socioeconomic status, could choose to work in partnership with one midwife who provided them with continuity of care throughout their whole pregnancy, birth and postnatal period? And for the birth to take place in the venue of their choice and one that suited them and their individual circumstances. What would it take for women to emerge from their births feeling innately powerful, physically well and emotionally safe? Isn’t it time for women’s needs in birth to be heard! In practice, in politics, in funding and in policy. BIRTH TIME.
