Premiere screening of Orgasmic Birth

Premiere screening of Orgasmic Birth

Birth Wise proudly announces the NZ premiere screening of Orgasmic Birth . . . a remarkable new documentary that examines the sensual and intimate nature of birth—an everyday miracle

WHEN: Saturday 6th September 2008 – doors open at 7pm WHERE: City Gallery Cinema, Civic Square, WELLINGTON FOR MORE INFO & TO BOOK $20 ADVANCE TICKETS telephone: 04 589 7802 or go to: www.nurturenz.com/orgasmicbirth.php

(Tickets will be limited on the door and are $25) Five years in the making, Orgasmic Birth challenges cultural myths by revealing the emotional, spiritual, and physical heights attainable through birth. Orgasmic Birth dismantles untruths about labour and birth that women have been told for generations and viewers witness the passion of birth as 11 women have their babies in unhurried, non-medicalised settings – including hospital birthing centres – where they feel supported and safe.

Through beautiful birth stories and interviews with couples, including a couple birthing their first baby in Wellington, NZ, and through comments from more than a dozen international experts in birth, we come to understand that labour and birth were intended to be enjoyed, not merely endured. The film demonstrates ways in which modern society, by subjecting healthy women to the medicalisation of birth, denies them a prime experience that is their human right.

Among the dozen birth specialists interviewed in the film are Sarah J Buckley, MD, author of Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering; Elizabeth Davis, director of the National Midwifery Institute; Marsden Wagner, MD, former director of Women's and Children's Health for the World Health Organization; and other physicians, midwives, and experts in the field.

In the film, Ina May Gaskin, founder/director of the Farm Midwifery Center in Summertown, Tennessee, explains, “Women can be completely surprised by the change in them from giving birth. You have something powerful in you—that fierce thing comes up. Babies need moms to have that fierceness. You feel you can do anything.”

Pascali-Bonaro’s goal in making the film was to educate people about their options and the implications of the circumstances of birth for women's and babies' health and well-being lifelong. “Undisturbed birth is an integral part of woman’s sexuality and a widely neglected human right,” she says. Women’s health advocate and bestselling author Christiane Northrup, MD, observes in the film that people have been “brainwashed” to view birth not as a natural process but as “an emergency waiting to happen.”

Yet on the contrary, Pascali-Bonaro asserts, birth is an everyday miracle that the body is well equipped to handle, given the proper setting and caregivers and ample time. During labour and birth, oxytocin, the body's natural hormone of sex and love, rises to peak levels in both mother and baby. The same elements that would create a sensuous experience with a lover—dim lights, privacy, a sense of safety—facilitate birth.

Orgasmic Birth’s evocative soundtrack was created by John McDowell, composer of the score for the Oscar-winning documentary Born Into Brothels. DVDs of the film, with subtitles in French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese, not yet sold outside screenings, will be available for purchase at the event.

Wellington event organisers already have plans to screen this new documentary around New Zealand later in the year

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