Original subtitles

They’re gonna fall into the water, right?

-She’s back at it again with me. -Have you seen that childbirth movie?

-No, no. -The one they show to pregnant women.

They’re shooting a second The Birth Reborn…

The first one, they shot it in several places.

And this one they’re shooting here, now.

She’s here, Mom. She’s so beautiful. She looks just like Juca.

Full black hair.

Big cheeks. Folds of fat. She’s delicious.

ACTIVIST

PSYCHOLOGIST

LAWYER

INSPECTOR GENERAL FEDERAL INSPECTOR GENERAL’S OFFICE

OBSTETRICIAN (GERMANY)

PEDIATRIC DOCTOR AND EPIDEMIOLOGIST, PHD

OBSTETRICIAN

PHYSICIAN, PHD

OBSTETRIC NURSE

PEDIATRIC NEONATOLOGIST DOCTOR

OBSTETRICIAN

OBSTETRIC NURSE (ENGLAND)

PHOTOGRAPHER

MODEL AND TV HOST

OBSTETRIC NURSE (ENGLAND)

OBSTETRICIAN

JOURNALIST

SCIENTIST, PHD

LAWYER

OBSTETRICIAN, PHD

You laugh, right, Fabiane?

What’s up?

He’s biting me.

He’s biting me.

You wanna see Mommy?

THE BIRTH REBORN 2

Keep going. Keep going.

Come on, Mom! No use trying to come down, Mom!

Lift that butt back up.

Push! Don’t you come down!

Keep going! Keep going, Mommy!

Put your strength down here! Keep pushing, keep pushing!

No! Don’t say “haa, haa”. Keep your mouth shut!

You gotta hold your breath, don’t breathe!

Keep pushing, Mommy! Come on, don’t stop pushing!

Come on, come on, come on.

It’s stuck.

Come on, come on. It’s getting out!

Don’t stop! Don’t open your mouth!

No, Mommy! Help me here, Mommy!

Come on, come on. Keep going, keep going.

Almost there.

Keep going, keep going.

Push, keep pushing!

No, he’s pulling at me. I can’t do this.

He’s trying to help you.

Stop it, woman!

You’re holding the baby inside you, look!

She’s pulling it back in. Come on, Mommy. It’s here, look.

It’s coming, it’s coming now! It’s coming!

Push, push! Don’t stop!

You gotta push! It’s almost getting out, come on!

There!

No! Don’t you touch it!

She contaminated everything.

Keep that hand down.

I’m sorry.

You don’t get it, do you? Look at this!

-You can hold it. Hold it. -Dammit!

It’s all contaminated. When it gets infected…

How could I know?

Keep that hand down.

-Mommy, I’m gonna put this here. -I didn’t know.

Congratulations, sweetie! You did great, beautiful!

Exactly! I was just giving you some advice, I wasn’t…

Okay, Mommy? It’s okay, everything’s under control, okay? Calm down.

It’s just a precaution, because when you touch it, you contaminate it.

-But I didn’t know! -I wasn’t yelling at you, woman!

Look at me here, let’s go up a little.

Relax, sweetie! Relax! Relax!

Relax, everything went okay. It was great!

He’s okay, everything’s okay, darling! Okay?

-I was just giving you advice. -Calm down, he’s right over there.

He’s crying there, very calm.

15 MONTHS LATER

We’re doing a Brazilian documentary

about delivery and childbirth. Whom might I talk to about it?

According to the doctors, let’s say,

I was already 42 weeks pregnant. The baby was going to die.

The doctor said, “Let’s make a C-section.” I hesitated, but, well,

42 weeks and a half.

I went to the hospital, my water broke.

I was left practically from midnight to 4:30 AM

completely alone in a room

with oxytocin dripping into my veins.

It was like a insecurity, fear actually.

“May I get up? Am I not allowed to?

I need to go to the bathroom.”

I think I wasn’t even allowed to drink or eat anything.

They’re prepping you for the C-section.

Not one soul came to tell me, “Look, this is what’s happening.

We’re gonna do this and this. We’re gonna wait until such time.” Nobody.

Actually, I only found out what oxytocin was much later.

I didn’t even know what it was they were pumping into my blood.

I know the law.

My husband didn’t know where I was.

You know why you can’t? The hospital director won’t let you.

Wanna know why? I’m gonna explain.

Here in this hospital, like in any other hospital,

there isn’t a structure for every single patient…

-The law… -Let me finish!

For every little patient in their cubicle, nice and cozy.

All those women, all of them,

are breastfeeding, naked. That’s why. Just out of respect for them.

You wanna get in? A cop comes here at 3 AM.

-We’re just doing our jobs… -This law was passed back in 2005.

You… We don’t have, we don’t have…

“Hospitals, maternity wards and the like are bound by law

to allow the presence of an escort indicated by the pregnant woman

to assist her during labor,

during delivery and after, for a period of up to ten days.

This applies to all hospitals in Brazil, be them private or public.”

I arrived at the hospital with a nine centimeters dilation.

All of a sudden, a guy came in pushing a gurney, and he said,

“Hey, why are you still dressed? We gotta get you to surgery.

Go strip, now!”

The people responsible for the medical staff, the doctor on duty,

could he come and speak with us?

With PR?

I had a very unnatural “natural” birth, actually.

Oxytocin and all.

One, two and… Push! Come on!

I was 18 years old, and I didn’t have any say in it.

How do you do? My name is Anne…

Throughout my whole pregnancy I’d been told,

“Either you do a C-section or you’re gonna die.

You gotta do a C-section or you’re gonna die.

You gotta do a C-section or you’re gonna die.”

And I grew up in a family where doctors are always right.

So I was gonna die. If I didn’t do the C-section, I was gonna die.

I suffered a lot, because… “I’m gonna have a baby

and I won’t get to know my baby, because I’m gonna die.”

Do you want to put a rag under here? Otherwise it'll make such a mess.

Through your nose!

They kept doing touch exams all the time.

They wouldn’t let me have a sip of water.

They wouldn’t let me eat. I felt like a caged animal.

“Doctor, must I lie down? I feel okay, I wanna sit.

I’m not comfortable lying down, I’m not okay.”

“Sit down, then. Sit down because we’re gonna give you anesthesia.”

“You chose to deliver this way. Now live with it.”

Small talk in the delivery room, people giggling.

They’re recording. Keep it quiet or it’s not gonna look nice.

We can cut it out in the editing room.

“This is your waiver.” “This is your waiver.”

And Pedro, my husband, read it and said, “Here says

that I won’t hold the doctor responsible for anything! Is that it?

If I don’t sign this, you won’t let me in?”

And the girl said, “We won’t.” So I signed everything.

I just signed a bunch of stuff, a huge wad of forms.

It was crazy. And people kept signing all that paperwork.

So many suitcases, getting to the hospital was an ordeal.

Check-in ended at 6:30 PM. It looked like a hotel.

I was there from… I don’t know, 6:30, the time I checked in,

till 10:30 PM waiting for that C-section thing,

and that late at night, inside surgery,

the AC was freezing cold, and I was naked, with my belly…

waiting… all alone!

You see a movement in health in the opposite direction, you know?

Towards afflicting or putting in danger

women’s health, children’s health,

by the doctors, you know?

For ethical reasons, it’s very complicated.

I’m a doctor, so that’s a huge conflict for me.

We have an ancestral memory of what violence is in this country.

We’ve had 500 years building violence, racist,

sexist, classist violence. And now, obstetric violence.

Verbal abuse, especially of a sexual nature.

“You didn’t scream that loud when you were doing it.

Why are you screaming now?”

Humiliation, shame, degradation.

They’re gonna slice her vagina, they’re gonna sit on her stomach.

Performing routine episiotomy on all women

or an episiotomy just to speed up the process.

Many times, these women are cut up without even being told about it.

Many times, without anesthesia. They scream then, saying,

“I don’t wanna be cut!” And the doctor cuts them up anyway.

Incontinence, she won’t be able to have a pleasurable sex life anymore.

It’s a woman’s right, guaranteed by law.

They want to crouch,

but they’re forced to lie down, they’re held down, even.

“Cruelty and torture like a concentration camp”

was a description repeated by dozens of women

who didn’t know each other from all over the country.

It’s impossible to understand that a doctor would lie to their patient

about the effective medication to perform a C-section on a woman.

Both the C-section and the episiotomy are surgical procedures.

According to the Criminal Code, which is already very old,

the Medical Ethics Code and the Civil Law Code,

a surgical procedure cannot be performed

against the will of the patient,

unless there really is an imminent risk of death for them.

Verified imminent risk of death and authorization from the next of kin.

Every person has a right to life, to safety,

to non-violence, to health. In 2014, the World Health Organization

released an official note taking the same position on the subject,

that abuse, mistreatment or omission of adequate health treatment

constitute a human rights violation.

It is the patient’s right to decide what they approve or disapprove.

So that’s an informed choice.

The Medical Ethics Code determines expressly

that it is a doctor’s duty to hear out their patients, to give them

adequate information based on scientific evidence.

It is the doctor’s duty to keep their knowledge up to date.

Some hospitals, in order to circumvent the obstetric violence issue,

are now issuing a “delivery plan” to pregnant women,

a document where women say what they will accept and what they won’t.

But it is a pre-issued adhesion term. It’s not a valid document

because the choice wasn’t free, clear and informed, as the law determines.

Enough violent deliveries to sell C-sections.

-Is it over? -Yeah.

-It lasted long, didn’t it? -One minute ten.

I’m already eight centimeters dilated. I am.

Three at six, then another one at 6:30.

This is a marathon, isn’t it, folks?

There’s still a lot of cervix to dilate,

but her head is very low. You’re doing fine.

You found your balance, understand?

-And the açaí. -The açaí gave you energy for sure.

I had an accident when I was seven years old

and they had to amputate my legs.

And they made me think I really was in no condition

to have a normal delivery.

My whole life I had to break barriers, always,

while someone said, “Ah, you can’t”, or “you’re not capable of doing that”.

The first doctor I went to,

he kinda stared at me

as if he was about to ask, “How did you do that?

How did you get pregnant?”

I left and didn’t come back again. So I went through a lot of doctors.

I even had to hear that my pelvis wasn’t opening,

that my body was too small.

Having a baby was something they saw like:

“Poor thing, she’s gonna suffer.”

My pregnancy was very peaceful,

the only thing I had was stomach sickness,

and they insisted that mine was a high-risk pregnancy.

And I was like, “High risk to whom?” Right?

Because I’m fine, my baby is fine.

Like, I used to get sick a lot,

to the point of having to inject

a very strong drug called Zofran.

So Rodrigo had to give me the shots.

I couldn’t even go to the drugstore, because one day I went there

and I fainted in the drugstore. So my pregnancy, in the beginning,

was very messed up because of all the sickness.

And when I went to have my ultrasound, he was like,

“How are you?” “I’m feeling awful.”

“But why do you feel like that?” “Because I feel sick all the time,

just looking at your face makes me wanna throw up.”

I was in such a foul mood because I couldn’t do anything,

I was always feeling sick, about to throw up. I couldn’t eat,

I couldn’t brush my teeth, nothing, you know?

So he said, “Well, if you’re feeling so sick,

I suppose there could be even more than one in there.” And I…

Those two hearts beating like that.

He said, “Look, there’s two here.”

And I was like, “No, not two.” “No, they’re really two babies.”

Rodrigo was weeping, lying on the couch, and I was like,

“No, that’s not possible.” “It is, too. Look at the screen.”

Then I looked and I went, “Damn.

Will I manage to hold these two little guys inside me,

to deliver and raise these two little guys?”

So the first thing I felt was a lot of fear.

But right away you begin to feel

very happy, doubly happy.

LACK OF DILATION

BODY BUILDERS OR ATHLETES

BABY “TOO SMALL”

UTERINE POLYPS

FLAMENGO VS. FLUMINENSE SOCCER MATCH

PROLONGED PREGNANCY

POLYCYSTIC OVARIES

PREVIOUS C-SECTION

INTERRACIAL MARRIAGE

TWIN PREGNANCY

MOM’S FLAT STOMACH

SEDENTARISM - CLOTS IN THE AMNIOTIC FLUID - KIDNEY FAILURE

NEAR-SIGHTEDNESS

BABY SWALLOWING AMNIOTIC FLUID

HEAVY URBAN TRAFFIC

The amniotic fluid, at the very least,

by the pregnancy’s third trimester is basically the baby’s urine.

The baby has to swallow it in order to form the digestive tract,

the respiratory system, the baby has to breathe the fluid.

When you have an elective C-section at 37 weeks,

what the couple is told

is that the baby was swallowing fluid,

so it’s got liquid in its lungs.

Going through labor squeezes the lungs

and reduces the amount of liquid when the baby is born.

The baby’s feet were stuck between the ribs,

so it couldn’t be a vaginal birth.

So there’s no uterus or amniotic sac either, right?

Yeah, the baby’s all loose in there.

Hanging on the mother’s ribs for dear life.

A friend of mine was also pregnant.

She took a lot of vitamins and had an ultrasound every month.

“My doctor didn’t prescribe me that. No, she didn’t prescribe this exam.”

“Don’t you think your doctor is way too negligent with you?”

I think the retinal detachment was one of the most…

“You’re 8/20 nearsighted.

If you make any physical effort, your eyes are gonna pop out.”

He suckled, he was held, all the procedures

we consider adequate for the baby.

“Shouldn’t we wait? Because I had to wait for my other kid.

Aren’t you gonna give him a bath?

You’ll leave him dirty? Are you gonna put his clothes on like that?”

When the mother went to her room, we quickly went to the nursery

to weigh the baby, measure him and put his clothes on.

The lady was very nervous and she asked to talk to me.

“No, I won’t put him in the incubator, me and the mother agreed on that,

it’s what’s best for the baby, he’s already been held and breastfed.”

“But what about the incubator picture?” “No, no incubator picture.”

People have this culture…

Carmem and Tom were born during the 39th week.

This was all I heard: “A twin pregnancy is a high-risk pregnancy.”

She was cephalic and he was breech, 60 hours since my water broke:

“Heartbeats are fine, both babies are fine,

you’re fine, we’ll monitor it.”

Are you having contractions?

One thing I really wanted to feel was this expulsion.

The passage through the canal, the crowning.

He came straight into my arms, it was beautiful,

Rodrigo cut the umbilical cord

and he was like this, right behind me the whole time.

His presence, his comfort,

so loving, so beautiful, like this.

Held the gauze.

Breathe. Great. Beautiful.

It’s… it’s…

Everything’s okay, everything’s okay.

Your place is here.

I wanna go to the hospital.

This is what we’ll do:

breathe deep and keep calm.

You eat something and then we go to the maternity ward.

Okay?

Gently, there’s no hurry.

Okay? We’re right here, we’ll do it in your time.

That’s it!

The sac!

Beautiful!

That’s it, let her come! She’s beautiful!

Beautiful!

It’s my baby!

My love!

My little baby!

There’s a tribe where they say that any baby who is born inside the sac

grows up to be very lucky in life.

Blessed.

Sofia Feldman Hospital begins by meeting

the demands and needs of expecting women.

It’s a counter-hegemonic model, so to speak.

An assistance geared more towards the community.

Good practices based on evidence,

which is the way to build knowledge.

Innovative initiatives

that end up becoming public policies.

We’ve always allowed patients to bring escorts,

way before it was passed into law.

The first child ever to be born in this hospital,

the whole family was here. That was more than 30 years ago.

It’s about human rights, so,

how can a woman go through a moment like that alone?

If she wants to have the baby at home, we go to her home.

If she’d rather deliver at the hospital, we assist her in there.

If she wants to go to a birth house, we assist her there.

It has to be a low-risk pregnancy,

without complications, be them high blood pressure or diabetes.

We bring all the necessary materials.

The same care we’d give her in a hospital,

we follow the same evidence.

She lives 30 minutes away from the hospital, from Sofia Hospital.

If she needs to be transferred, that’s where she’ll go.

In one of the hospital’s ambulances.

I had all the support a person needs

in order to do the antenatal.

And I gave birth crouching, right? Which really makes it easy.

Alice Jennifer has jaundice,

so she’s in treatment now.

We’re not talking only about biological health,

a broader vision of health, with vinculation,

with gentleness, with love, with affection,

that’s another condition for this baby to develop

and be a healthy adult as well.

And then I went through all that again, you know?

There was another one.

After all that, there was still another one.

Let’s just talk about soccer.

Ah, no. Not about Corinthians. For God’s sake.

-What team do you support? -I’m a Corinthians fan.

I was informed that the doctors were gonna say…

The “normal” delivery, abnormal, actually…

I didn’t even know what it was they were pumping into my blood.

You gotta do a C-section or you’re gonna die.

You gotta do a C-section or you’re gonna die.

I know what the law says, son!

The hospital won’t allow it.

Are you gonna go against the law?

Are you gonna go against the law?

Officer, she’s trying to go against the law.

So the law won’t be obeyed, then.

Yeah, yeah, Jorge. Director, no one…

Okay, son. I won’t go against any laws.

He can’t get in, can he? Okay.

Is he going in and he’ll be there with all the other patients?

The director won’t allow it just because of that.

Because all the other patients are in that same place,

all of them naked, all… that’s disrespecting the other patients.

Unfortunately.

She was born without labor, at 38 weeks,

from an undesired, coerced elective C-section… here.

Blue in the face from crying. But away from my baby.

It’s very, very upsetting!

Monitored visit, right?

May I know how it’s gonna be monitored? As a mother?

Customer service. So what’s the number?

Okay.

“You’re not dilated enough.”

They didn’t give me time to dilate.

I didn’t have any contact at all with her.

I only got to see Luiza 12 hours after she was born.

Nine years later, I got pregnant.

“I want a natural birth.”

“You can’t have it.”

-“Why not?” -“You already had a C-section

and you’re too old.”

“Old?” I was 31.

Look at Luiza. She’s making faces, look.

Can I schedule this visit with you?

Because then, when I get clearance, I’m gonna have that ready.

-You have kids, right? -Yeah, a girl and a boy.

They were C-sections, so it was scheduled.

Did she go into labor? Or was it a scheduled C-section?

-Was it scheduled? -It was scheduled.

Were they breastfed, the babies? In the delivery room?

No. No.

The child only comes to the room when the mother is also in the room.

Those who come to visit also ask,

“Where? Where is she? Where?”

Was he put in that fish tank, that nursery? Your babies?

-They did. -Mine too.

With a little camera on top of him.

And you could look at him through the camera, right?

-From the room. -From the room, right?

Yeah, there was a normal TV set in there.

-Did you watch the surgery? -No, I tried not to look at it.

I saw the baby coming out. But I didn’t look at my wife,

because of the cut. I kept holding her hand and she squeezed mine.

Then, when they brought the baby, she couldn’t hold him either

-because she was strapped, I think. -She couldn’t.

They broke my water. Then he actually gets on top of me,

he steps on a stool or a ladder, I mean, he put the palm of his hand

and pressed down with all his weight on my belly. It was brutal.

They performed an episiotomy on me without my knowledge.

Without information or consent. They cut me up.

Yes, I’d like to take pictures and record it.

And let me ask you another thing,

would it be possible for me to sit and talk to a doctor,

to someone in charge of the staff? About the procedures that are done

in the maternity ward when a baby is born.

A woman doctor came to see me, there was another touch exam,

then she broke my water,

they did an awful episiotomy which still hurts today.

I feel pain from my episiotomy, physical pain.

With my legs up, like this…

and he applied the Kristeller maneuver.

It was ultraviolent. There was no need for that.

The baby was coming out already.

What’s the director’s name? Could I talk to him?

In order to talk to the director, you have to schedule a meeting.

I was four centimeters dilated already,

so I was doing fine. And I went into C-section.

He said, “we can’t wait anymore,

we can’t wait for a natural birth,

because you might die if you had a natural birth.

I’m calling customer service because I want to find out

whether I can make a monitored tour of the maternity ward, taking pictures.

The line is busy, please try again later. Thank you.

I remember very vividly the doctor saying, “Gee, I slit his butt.”

Because when he cut me, he also cut my baby up.

He’s still got a scar.

He’s got a cut in his butt, it’s gone up a little.

But it wasn’t a little cut. It was a cut.

The Belém, Pará Convention, an international treaty

signed and ratified by Brazil, deliberates that any conduct

which causes physical, psychological, sexual or moral harm to a woman

is gender violence. Besides being negligence.

It’s more than malpractice. It’s more than negligence.

Who are the people who get access to that kind of information, right?

Are they getting access to that in the community?

Obstetric violence is violence against women in the sexual sphere.

Very akin to rape.

The reports that come to us tell that under obstetric violence, women feel

the same way a sexually raped woman,

a woman who was raped, feels.

No one has rights on anyone else’s body.

Even at childbirth, even babies.

Who wants to be a victim of sexual violence?

Would you want to acknowledge your torturer?

Would you want to say that the doctor,

the one who was there at the moment of your delivery,

the most special day in your life

because there’s also all this romantization of motherhood

was someone who committed violence against you and against your baby?

It’s about the struggle for valuing childhood, for respecting children.

“Why do you wanna keep talking about that, about black women?

We’re all equal, we want the same things.”

No. Sometimes, what a white woman wants

is different from what a black woman or what a native Brazilian woman

or a woman in a wheelchair want, for instance.

She’ll struggle for accessibility issues

which I, as a woman who can walk, don’t even notice,

because I have all this access.

So my struggle is different from hers,

but I have to take her struggle into consideration.

Collectively, I cannot depend on information.

Collectively, what’s going to save us are public policies.

And mass invasions by women at those places

where public policies are issued, which today are dominated by men.

I was already 39 weeks pregnant and they wouldn’t get out.

My belly was bulging out my back already.

It expanded to the sides, my belly.

Then one day a little liquid came out.

So he said, “Let’s go to the hospital,

because I think we shouldn’t wait anymore.”

Rodrigo, if he could, he’d get pregnant for me.

He mounted a camera on his head, on a baseball cap,

he got it all set up to record the birth,

so we have the whole process filmed FPV by him.

And it was so moving, it was really great.

I was in labor for eight hours,

I began to feel a lot of pain with the contractions.

There’s something I would do differently if I got pregnant again,

which is the anesthesia. I couldn’t feel my legs.

That was very frustrating, because I really wanted to…

I mean, I practice yoga, breathing techniques, I work out,

I’m such an athlete, I bench-press, I’m always in the gym,

and I think I could have pitched in more

when it was time to push for the expulsion, you know?

And I couldn’t do it because I couldn’t feel my legs,

and I found that out when I wanted to go to the bathroom.

“Can I go pee?” “I think you won’t be able to.”

Then when I tried to get up I was like, “Damn.”

My twins were born ten minutes apart.

I didn’t have the pleasure of breastfeeding them like in the soaps,

which look like they stay there for hours, swap tits,

then you look at them a bit more. It’s always very quick,

because you’re breastfeeding one and the other is already crying,

it’s like they’re always sensing each other, following each other.

So I’m nursing one baby and the other one is there waiting,

he’s waiting in line, holding his horses. That was when it sunk in,

how hard it is to raise twins, it’s really like running a marathon.

I had children during my internship as an obstetrician.

I went early to the hospital,

got all the usual shtick about interventions,

and I saw myself having a C-section. It was a shock. Very frustrating,

I couldn’t understand what it was that went wrong,

but now I know that it was completely necessary.

And that didn’t result in what I wanted,

because I had a second baby through a C-section.

She was breech, I tried an external cephalic version before the C-section.

Artificially, from outside the womb,

we turn the baby upside down. Every four moms we try that,

usually we manage to turn one baby that way.

If we give her medication

to suppress womb contractions,

we’re able to turn one more of these four babies, that is, 50%.

And if we resource to anesthesia, an anesthetic that is similar

to the one used in C-sections, we can turn the third baby. So, in general,

out of every four attempts of cephalic version, we manage to do three.

She was turned into cephalic, but then, next day, she was sitting again.

A scientific paper was just out,

saying that it had to be a C-section.

Let it go slowly. Let go.

When I got my third pregnancy, my daughter,

I went in search of scientific evidence.

It was a wonderful experience,

every contraction, every minute was worth it.

I can’t believe I did it.

Hi, sweetie. Evelyn…

Evelyn…

We did it.

What an adventure you had today, girl.

See, love? Didn’t I tell you it was a good idea to pack a bag?

The English National System is a value for English society,

so we want to turn Brazilian public health care into a value,

an unquestionable asset for the Brazilian population.

Going against the flow of Brazilian history,

we’re managing to reduce C-sections in Belo Horizonte.

Death of the mother, death of infants

from birth-related causes.

-It’s a girl! -It’s a girl!

Oh, my God!

There are places in the world where they even give money to women

to have their babies at home.

That free childbirth at home may become a public health policy.

It is the woman’s right to choose where she wants to have her baby,

if adequate conditions are provided.

It’s not someone in a white lab coat, all sterile and cold,

but a friend who pushes the piano to make room for the inflatable pool,

to get you a chair quickly, to back you up, to warm up the water.

When Ayomide was born, it was…

it was unique.

Men don’t cry.

They say men don’t cry. But…

I can’t compare that with any other moment.

-The afterbirth. -Look at the circle here.

-What a beautiful afterbirth, folks. -Beautiful. Very special.

-Look at this ring! -So beautiful.

-And my baby is getting her milk. -Beautiful!

There, like that.

-It feels great like that. -Great, huh?

-You guys think I’ll manage? -Of course, you will!

-You are managing already. -You think?

-Of course! -I’m beginning to get afraid.

It’s okay. You’ll overcome your fear.

Fear of what?

Of not being able to take it anymore.

If you ever feel you can’t take it anymore, then we’ll talk.

We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

I usually say I don’t make deliveries.

You make the delivery. The woman makes it.

The more we see science advancing,

the more we tend to do nothing.

Those who do real obstetrics

in its truest sense, practice “obstare”, “being at someone’s side”.

The births that give me the most satisfaction are those

where I sit on my hands and do nothing, I just observe.

You don’t need so much technology

in order to give quality care.

It’s counter-intuitive, because we used to do things the right way,

then we began doing it all wrong, and now

we have to prove, through science,

that what we used to do before was the right way.

Let her hold her.

-Oh, baby. -Look at Mommy, sweetie.

I love you. Too much even.

-My baby. -You can hold him.

My beautiful baby!

-I can’t believe this. -He’s here.

-He’s okay. -He’s okay.

We did it. Me and you.

With a lot of special guests.

Look at his face.

Look how beautiful you’ll grow up to be.

-You’re gonna be very pretty. -You’ll be beautiful!

-Gee, bless you! -He loves his dad.

Are you gonna learn how to change his diapers?

-I think I’m gonna have to. -“I think I’m gonna have to”!

NARROW PELVIS BEFORE LABOR

HEART DISEASE

SWELLING

UMBILICAL CORD STRANGULATION

TOO HEALTHY

PREVIOUS ABDOMINOPLASTY

PILES

INSUFFICIENT FLUID DETECTED IN ULTRASOUND EXAM

TEEN PREGNANCY

OVERDUE

MOM TOO THIN

UMBILICAL CORD STRANGULATION -AND I WAS BORN AT HOME

PATIENT “DOES NOT HELP WITH NATURAL BIRTH”

OUT OF ROOM IN THE MATERNITY WARD

All over the world, what do we see?

An attempt not to go over 42 weeks.

Because after 42 weeks, your chances of having natural birth are reduced.

Here in Brazil, it’s 40. Forty weeks, you do a touch exam,

“Gee, the baby’s too high, the cervix is closed, it won’t fit.

It won’t fit anyway, why would you wanna wait?”

It’s a euphemism to take the edge off of the word “surgery”.

Birth, the woman gave birth. “Shall we schedule your delivery?”

You don’t schedule a delivery, You schedule surgery.

However, I won’t tell that woman in my office

that we’re scheduling her surgery.

But the crux of the matter is what’s being sold to that woman: safety.

Natural birth must become again an option

for Brazilian women. It’s not an option anymore.

Humanized C-section was a controversy in some courses,

and such humanization is based especially

in putting the woman in the central role. You go to a C-section

and women often lose their central roles.

When you say “humanized C-section”,

you reinforce the birth industry we have.

In my C-section, they dimmed the lights, there was music, skin contact.

I’d say it’s a respectful C-section.

Humanization means much more than something nice,

with scented oils, music playing and dimmed lights. First of all,

humanization means working with current scientific evidence.

I only found a doctor in my 30th week.

And he joked about it, he said to me,

“Whales give birth and they have no legs. So it’s gonna be easy for you.”

They said, “In ten minutes, tops, the second baby will come.”

Okay, then. Tom, come on.

It took way longer than that.

At one point, I was begging for a C-section.

“For God’s sake! I can’t take this anymore!”

“You chose to deliver this way.

Now live with it.”

Touch exams all the time.

“Sit down, then. Sit down, because we’re gonna give you anesthesia.”

They wouldn’t let me have a sip of water.

Must I lie down? I feel okay, I wanna sit.

So I was gonna die. If I didn’t do the C-section, I was gonna die.

…with oxytocin dripping into my veins.

In training hospitals, we heard a statement from a woman

who told us that eight different people performed touch exams on her.

And in that same delivery, she suffered two episiotomies

to practice episiotomy and suture.

Let us build intolerance to obstetric violence.

It is marked on women’s bodies,

on babies’ bodies, on the soul of all these people involved at birth.

-I have to schedule a meeting, right? -You have to talk to his secretary.

It’s even funny, because they’re already like, “But why?

Why do you wanna record it? Why do you wanna record it?”

Concerning schedules, that’s more of a technology thing,

it has to do with the advances of medicine in that field.

We have a lot of data in Brazil about iatrogenic prematurity,

as they call it, which is forced prematurity.

People even think that medication

and medicalization are the same thing, and they’re not.

Medications exist to help us.

Medicalization is a social construct

that makes us see natural things from a medical perspective.

That began specifically, in childbirth management,

in the 16th century, when midwives, godmothers and healers

were removed from the birth scene and replaced by men,

who were considered the recipients of scientific knowledge.

It was an appropriation by men of science with technique and technology.

During the Fifties, a movement began

against cruelty on pregnant women in the USA

and Europe, especially in England,

where women gave birth while they were unconscious,

physically restrained. They didn’t have any recollection of the delivery

because of the amount of memory-impairing drugs.

They came back from it with bruises on their wrists and ankles.

Many times, they had scars from falling off the bed,

because the medication induced psychomotor agitation

and they fell off the bed, so they had to be strapped down to deliver.

They showed me Pedro and took him away.

There wasn’t any skin contact.

“If you don’t tie your tubes along with the C-section

and you get pregnant again, you’re gonna die.”

They performed another C-section because I was gonna die

and they tied my tubes.

And then my baby daughter was born, I wanted to hold her.

“No, no, no. You can’t… put down that arm!”

Because I was full of oxytocin and I didn’t know what that was either.

The marketing department’s number.

They ripped off the afterbirth, they simply pulled it off.

That hurt a lot as well.

In the Sixties, with the Hippie movement and the feminist movement,

there was strong contestation of authorities in general,

including medical authorities.

Childbirth is a moment of empowerment for the woman,

it’s the moment where she takes control over her own body,

where she has an active attitude.

My mom was already in the room. I looked at my mother

and I told her, “Mom, they cut me up.”

And then my mom said to me,

“No, girl. That’s normal.”

I said, “It’s not normal. I’m in pain.”

And then, when Mom took me to the bathroom,

she said, “Look, don’t be scared. It’s gonna hurt.

Don’t be shocked when you touch it.”

I just kept looking at her and saying, “Why?

Why did they do this?” And she couldn’t answer me either.

Feminism is, maybe, the hardcore, the great inspiration

for this criticism and for debating obstetric violence.

This knowledge of medical obstetric gynecology

and of medicine in general is, to a great extent,

a misogynous one, which stems from the idea that women are even

incapable of being doctors.

There’s a whole biological explanation of women being irrational creatures,

incapable of having any objective scientific thinking.

This is why they need to be protected by men, by institutions.

Feminism is the struggle for a woman’s right to decide

about herself, about her own life, about her own body.

For more protagonism, for a voice, for space,

for equity, which is different from equality, isn’t it?

It’s not about being equal to men, but about having the same rights as men.

Deserving respect is intrinsic to human beings.

No one should have to earn respect.

That’s a very common mistake, people thinking

that feminism is the opposite of male sexism.

It’s an institutionalized model

which is deeply seated in patriarchal logic

power and domination over women’s bodies.

The medical discourse is impregnated, most of all,

with fear of the feminine, fear of childbirth.

Come on! Come on! Come on!

There’s this fantasy that after such a giant phallus, the baby,

goes through the vagina, the phallus of the partner will get lost in there.

So the woman ceases to be a sex object

to be a worn-out, used, loose person,

and that has no basis on the best of scientific evidence.

Spontaneous childbirth can actually, according to some,

propitiate a better-toned vagina than before,

but in the professionals’ view, the fact of having a vaginal birth

is a threat, because the woman wouldn’t be able

to satisfy her partner sexually anymore.

Jokes… doctors comment that they’re gonna close it up more.

With João’s pregnancy, that was when I found out

that after Juliana’s episiotomy I received one extra stitch,

the so called “husband’s stitch”.

We mustn’t ruin this amusement park here.

Let’s make the smallest cut possible.

It’ll just squeeze through. Tightly.

Congratulations to you guys.

In order to change the world, we must first

rescue women’s self-reliance,

because women themselves are the ones who will change childbirth.

I think this is that thing you talked about.

Oh, love!

Oh, love!

It’s strong!

Beli! Beli!

What’s nice about having staff you trust

is that there’s no frustration afterward for having a C-section.

Because I know it was necessary.

-Can I try another one, then? -You can, I told you that.

-Not right away, you know? -I told you could try again.

-Another natural birth? -Another natural birth.

We stay about four hours after the delivery to follow through,

to make sure that the mother-child bond has been established,

that the baby has been breastfed. We leave only when everything’s okay.

We’re available on the phone. If she needs any member of the staff

to go back to her home, it’s all there. She can make lunch,

she can go up, take a bath and go about her business

and enjoy the company of her baby.

Public health can work. It’s still a young public health system

and everyone depends on it.

Anyone who goes out to have dinner at an expensive restaurant

is depending on public health, because sanitary inspections

at that restaurant are done by Sanitary Vigilance,

which is an organ integrated into the unified public health system.

People forget that sometimes.

It covers, of course, 200 million people and helps directly in all the phases,

from disease prevention, promotion and recovery of health,

including procedures of top complexity

for 150 million people.

It’s the largest public health system in the world!

Not even China’s is bigger. China has 1.3 billion people,

but it has no public health system

covering 150 million people.

Full of diapers in there.

This little girl made me get to moments I’d never thought of before.

My deepest fear in childbirth was that it’d be a C-section.

Then she turned.

I started having two-minute contractions.

“No time to do the version anymore.

Breech she is, and we’ll have to make the delivery that way.”

That moment was very intense, right?

Two hours. For those who were there, it felt practically like one week.

And when she was born, of course that was very intense for me,

and I began to see that things didn’t look like they were

the way we had planned, and I became even more afraid.

Mariana!

She’s beautiful!

Look who’s here!

Help me. Why is it like that?

Because she was like that for a long time, but the swelling will go away.

-That’s the hump. -Does it go away?

It does. It’ll be back to normal.

I drove home peacefully, feeling great.

Next day, I was taking care of my baby. I gave her a bath.

Even when I’m not here anymore,

a little bit of me somehow will still be,

it’s my Part II.

-Can I take a picture here? -Of course.

Can I take a picture here?

Show me where it is. I’m coming, okay?

Now she’ll go to the nursery.

Are we going to shoot here? Her exit.

She’s going away.

We can’t follow them anymore, right? We can’t.

-Are you going out? -I’ll go there. It’s better, right?

She needs to change.

This is Aunt Fátima.

Bye, Luiza! What now?

Now she goes to the nursery. In about three hours,

she should be back in the room again.

-Who? -The baby.

Four years later, what I still can’t wrap my head around

is that they fooled me into tying my tubes.

Just because I had three children, is it over? Can I not have any more?

One of the most frequent kinds of complaint we get

is about oxytocin abuse

to make women go through labor quickly,

freeing up hospital beds, even though doctors, hospitals, won’t confirm it.

25% of all women experience some kind of childbirth violence,

and many aren’t even aware that they were subjected to it.

I wanted that to end quickly.

That was my childbirth. That was my baby daughter, you know?

One out of every four women,

according to a study by the Perseu Abramo Foundation,

experience natural birth.

Now, what’s the percentage of Brazilian women

who are having natural childbirth?

It’s a minority. That means this number is much higher,

because it doesn’t take into account the number of women

who have C-sections and are victims of obstetric violence.

Fiocruz’s research Being Born in Brazil proves

the kind of obstetric violence that every type of woman suffers.

So, affluent women suffer the obstetric violence

of having unnecessary C-sections,

but they get a nice room service.

Some people think that having hotel service at a hospital is good care.

I don’t think women should be forced to have natural deliveries.

I fight for the right of women to be well informed

and choose their elective C-sections. That’s not my problem.

My problem is those who want a natural delivery and can’t get it.

Vulnerable, I think that’s the word.

They simply strapped me down

and I insisted that I wanted a natural delivery.

After they stitched me up,

after all the C-section procedures, they let me loose and showed me

my daughter like this, 10, 15 centimeters away from me.

Don’t finish.

We have to tell two kinds of violence apart,

a somewhat more subtle violence, which Marilena Chauí

calls “perfect violence”,

which many people will not see as violence,

because it’s so well-constructed, so normalized,

that it’s wearing “protection” or “care” make-up.

“Look, I’ll just do a little cut, just a little snip.”

The vast majority of obstetric violence is perfect violence.

The first delivery was very traumatic for me.

I became a statistic for unnecessary C-section.

I got pregnant with my second daughter and I knew right then

that I wanted a different birth.

Nothing better than Sofia, right?

We perform 1,000 births a month on average,

and the C-section rate is about 25%.

Everyone, the board of directors, all workers

know the public health system’s principles by heart.

If all hospitals in this country

could know such principles, we could say that every hospital

in the public health system works, despite all the hardships they face.

Many people say, “But that’s a structural issue,

what can I do? I’m overcrowded as it is.

I lack resources.” Actually,

that’s the least important thing where humanization is concerned.

The most important thing is changing every staff member internally.

Who wants a C-section? The C-section is to blame,

because it gets chosen. Because pregnant women

who want a C-section, they choose it,

they ask for it, they can’t face the pain,

they think they won’t be able to.

It’s the OBGYN’s job to activate their in-ear Babelfish, and when she says,

“I want a C-section”, they should hear, “I want help”.

We’ve got auriculotherapy, ventouse,

acupuncture, homeopathy, floral and aromatherapy techniques.

The basis, the common core is traditional Chinese medicine.

It’s a new regard for health care.

Peaceful mom, peaceful baby, peaceful delivery.

It’s about loving what you do.

Sometimes a woman is there, suffering, because she’s alone.

If you go and hold her hand, look her in the eyes,

that’s enough. Just that’ll do a world of difference.

And the public health system is an option for that,

so you have staff who are there, and if they’re properly trained,

it won’t make much difference if you get staff A, B or C.

Two fillings. Delicious!

-Wow, she’s devouring it! -I am not!

Put it in your mouth! Put it in your mouth!

It’s gonna be all right. Everything fine so far?

-It’s just anxiety. -But you get that, you can’t help it.

-Anxiety to see his little face. -How many months are you?

-I’m in the 34th week. -Almost seven months.

I won’t hold it together. I’m gonna scream.

How are we gonna renounce to that?

What are we gonna renounce to in the public health system?

To defend women’s rights?

To proper treatment during childbirth?

To the right of children to be born with decent treatment?

We have a natural birth center, 100% public health system,

São Sebastião Birth House, in the Federal District.

It’s a small space, as cozy as possible.

We have a whole structure to allow women to have their babies safely.

We want this public health system to work,

that it can happen to all women.

I’m explaining to this gentleman since the time he got here,

and his wife’s had her baby, actually, she’s lying in there

calmly, beautifully fulfilling her role as a mother,

and you are pestering me ever since you got here.

You wanna go in? You may go in.

To me, it’s indifferent if you watch the delivery or not.

It’s the law. Okay, then, here, take your nice law,

fold it and tuck it somewhere. Do you want to go in?

I was begging for anesthesia,

they gave me at the end, and I didn’t feel my daughter being born.

They tore her from me, they took her away,

I think I was separated from her for three hours.

Black women suffer much worse verbal insults,

Kristeller maneuvers, unnecessary touch exams.

Black women are those who get the least anesthetics,

they get the least information, and when they go to a public hospital,

they’re gonna hear: “Oh, you have large hips.”

“You’re a good breeder.” “You can stand the pain better.”

Come on, kid!

Thank God, everything’s fine.

Stop the drip. Stop the drip.

Beautiful!

Rest, Mom, rest.

Crying nicely!

Naming helps us to remove

the invisibility cloak that covers this phenomenon.

Research shows: Native Brazilian women suffer less interventions,

they get less food, because there’s this idea that she’s an animal

and she knows how to have her baby crouching. So, if she needs

an emergency C-section, she won’t have access to it.

These are women whose cultural values aren’t being respected.

These multi-ethnical strata in Brazil,

they’re being completely neglected.

We’re not lunatics or mystics,

it’s the scientists who agree with all that, actually.

Belo Horizonte’s Perinatal Committee

works with all sorts of partners.

We gather everyone together, including the private sector,

Sanitary Vigilance, law councils, health councils,

women’s representatives, Bem Nascer.

A broad invitation and a regular, representative, diverse agenda

to build a new differential, a new paradigm.

And Sofia helps a lot with that.

One of the main safeguards Brazilians have today

of their citizenship is the public health system.

This is why we have to struggle with all our strength

to avoid its elimination.

I think the Brazilian people still have no idea

of what living without a public health system is.

Three unnecessary C-sections.

It’s my body. I was cut up three times

and I didn’t want to. Three times.

I have a documentary crew here…

-Make him be okay! -He's great!

My love!

My love!

Love of my life!

The term appeared in Brazil, “humanization”.

There was much resistance because of that name, “humanized”.

The doctors who didn’t understand this kind of care would say,

“But I am human, I treat women,

I don’t treat cows and bitches.”

I prefer the term “humanist assistance”,

which covers all areas, not only obstetric assistance.

Health assistance in general.

Ben, you came at a good time to see

The world spinning fast

And life running too far

Ben, I heard that you wanted to talk

Your mom told me you’re something else

And looking at your pictures, I miss you

Ben, one day you’ll grow up

You’ll get tired of toys and playing

You’ll come back with sadness under your arm

Because teeth decay

And legs grow too long

Ghosts fly

After the light dissolves

But that’s no mystery

No need to cry

Ben, never stop listening to the records I gave you

Never miss a nice day at the beach

Don’t forget to come visit me, you rascal

Ben, don’t listen to what they’ll say

And don’t hear too many advice

Not even this nonsense I’m telling you now

That teeth decay

And legs grow too long

Ghosts fly

After the light dissolves

People scream

People talk too much

But that’s no mystery

No need to cry

Life is good

When you play too much

When you sing

And you don’t look back

Just don’t forget

That I’m your buddy and I know more

This pain is impossible to explain.

No matter how much you study, you read, it’s no use,

you have to live it to know what it’s like, see?

I thought I was so though, a Marathon runner.

He’s born!

My love! My love, beautiful!

You’re drowning, love? Please don’t drown.