Toni Harman2013-05-22T03:29:24-04:00Toni Harmanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=toni-harmanCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Toni HarmanGood old fashioned elbow grease.Freedom for Birth - Can Anyone Argue Against Respecting Women's Rights in Childbirth?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.22174372012-12-02T19:00:00-05:002013-02-01T05:12:01-05:00Toni Harmanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/toni-harman/
I believe underpinning all these issues is respect for a woman's right to make decisions about her own body. When I started making the documentary film FREEDOM FOR BIRTH with my partner Alex Wakeford, we (naively) thought how could anyone argue against a woman's fundamental Human Right to choose how and where she gives birth?
FREEDOM FOR BIRTH features academics, lawyers, doctors and midwives all calling for women's rights in childbirth to be respected and women to be afforded real choice in birth. The film highlights how, in some countries today, women who want to have a normal vaginal birth are sometimes forced by judges to have c-sections or are threatened with having their child taken away by child welfare services. In some countries, if a woman wants to have a home birth supported by a midwife, those midwives face criminal prosecution. Some midwives like Ágnes Geréb in Hungary have even been imprisoned.
We launched the film on 20 September this year with over 1,000 screenings in 50 countries in 17 different languages. We estimate that up to 100,000 people worldwide saw the film on that day. After the screenings, we had thousands of supportive messages from people appreciative that we were raising awareness of this as an important global issue.
There were also some objections. Australian obstetrician and former Australian Medical Association President, Dr Andrew Pesce, said the film was not relevant to Australia as it was "a long bow to draw" to compare the experiences of a jailed Hungarian midwife and Australia.
Recently an article about planned home birth called 'Planned Homebirth: The Professional Responsibility Response' was published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. In the section addressing "respect for women's rights", the authors concluded,
"from the perspective of the professional responsibility model, insistence on implementing the unconstrained rights of pregnant women to control the birth location is an ethical error and therefore has no place in professional perinatal medicine. An editorial in Lancet succinctly summarized this point: "Women have the right to choose how and where to give birth, but they do not have the right to put their baby at risk.""
The obstetrician Dr Amy Tuteur recently wrote a blog-post criticising the film (which she hasn't seen) and the Human Rights in Childbirth conference which took place at the Hague earlier this year (which she didn't attend). Dr Tuteur's main objections were that the organisers of the conference and myself are well-off white Western women holding conferences and making films for well-off white Western women. That we don't focus on abuses happening in developing nations and hence the use of the term "Human Rights" to describe violations in rich industrialized nations is "morally grotesque."
It's true, the film exposes routine Human Rights abuses happening in the developed nations. If you total up populations, that's over one billion people. This includes the 800 million citizens living within the jurisdiction of the Council of Europe who are directly affected by the European Court of Human Rights holding (Ternovszky vs Hungary, no. 67545/09, 15 December 2010) saying that a woman has the legal right to choose the circumstances of her birth.
Horrific abuse in childbirth happens every day in developing nations where women and their babies are often denied access to life-saving obstetric care. In fact, we intend to focus on this in a future film.
I believe that just because "worse" Human Rights abuses are happening elsewhere doesn't mean that a film shouldn't draw attention to what is happening now across Europe, the Americas, Australasia and beyond. With the incredible wealth and resources of industrialised nations, you might hope that these countries would get things right, that women's rights would be fully respected, that these countries would set a positive example.
Generations of women have fought for the right to equality, for the right to make decisions about your own body, for the right to have full informed choice and for the right to be respected, yet it seems when it comes to childbirth, some people believe those rights should be surrendered.
We are about to release a free-to-view 15 minute abridged version of the film. We want people to watch it and make up their own minds. We made the film not just because we wanted to reveal a difficult truth but because we wanted to start a conversation with all sides that will bring these issues into the mainstream. We want the film to spark a debate and for that debate to lead to change.
We want all women to be afforded real informed choice as to how and where they give birth, for all women's rights to be fully respected by all care providers and for Human Rights violations to end.
Join us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/freedomforbirth]]>Is Our New Film Poster For FREEDOM FOR BIRTH Too Shocking?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.17781102012-08-15T07:37:29-04:002012-10-15T05:12:02-04:00Toni Harmanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/toni-harman/FREEDOM FOR BIRTH.
The film launches next month with hundreds of screenings around the world on the same day, Thursday 20th September.
"Freedom For Birth" is a hard-hitting 60 minute campaigning documentary featuring over forty of the world's leading birth experts, lawyers, academics, doctors, midwives and campaigners all calling for radical change to the world's maternity systems.
The film re-frames routine violations of Human Rights as the most pressing global issue in birth today. In countries around the world, women cannot choose how and where to give birth. Their choices are not fully supported by the obstetric system. In more extreme cases of Human Rights abuse, women are subjected to forced c-sections against their wishes and midwives like Agnes Gereb in Hungary are imprisoned for supporting home births.
It's a tough subject matter and the film has the power to send shock-waves around the world. We wanted the film's poster image to reflect symbolically that this is an important Human Rights issue affecting all women, so we chose to show (non-pregnant) flag-waving activists walking across blood-red barbed wire.
When we revealed the poster on Facebook, we had a mixed reception from our core audience of midwives, doulas, birth educators and campaigners.
Many loved the powerful symbolism. One comment said, "unless we take birth back the wire will become even larger! Let's stir each other up and become powerfully proactive! We need to be the catalyst to make the difference for you, your children and theirs!"
Others wondered if the image was too shocking, too aggressive and even, perhaps too "masculine" - that the imagery should have been less about "the fight" and more about the beauty, strength and essential femininity of birth.
As the filmmakers and poster-creators, we agree. The poster image is deliberately shocking and aggressive. But for us, that's the point. If we are going to change maternity systems around the world, we believe we need to shake things up.
We have gone on a journey ourselves over the past few years. Myself and my partner Alex Wakeford were ordinary filmmakers but through our own difficult birth experience (a cascade of unnecessary interventions that led to an emergency c-section) we have turned into "radical birth warriors".
From seeing the poster and from seeing our film, we want to wake people up to the routine Human Rights abuses happening around the world. We want women across the world to take a stand, to say "No More". We want the film's release and its accompanying grass-roots campaign to become the Mothers' Revolution.
If it takes us producing a shocking aggressive masculine poster to help us achieve that, then that is exactly what we are going to do.
But what do you think? Is a shocking graphic image appropriate for a film about birth - a time that could and should be the most beautiful amazing moment of a woman's life?
http://freedomforbirth.comhttp://freedomforbirth.com]]>Agnes Gereb and the Case for Human Rights in Childbirthtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.15395952012-05-24T13:11:21-04:002012-07-24T05:12:07-04:00Toni Harmanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/toni-harman/"I wanted to say that your work is very special. I think it is very important and it can be very effective. It was an honour for me to have you here."
Dr Agnes Gereb, Budapest, Hungary, May 2012 talking about One World Birth
Earlier this month we filmed an interview with Dr Agnes Gereb, the Hungarian obstetrician and midwife who was imprisoned and is currently under house arrest for supporting women giving birth at home. The filming was for our ONE WORLD BIRTH new documentary film which will be released this summer.
Although it is legal for mothers to give birth at home in Hungary, any medical professional (without a special license) who helps those women can be criminally charged.
Over many years, Agnes Gereb supported over 3,500 homebirths - each time risking arrest - because she believes in giving women a choice in birth.
Agnes' beliefs are at odds with the Hungarian maternity system. It's a system where, according to the Hungarian Obstetrician we also interviewed, medical interventions like induction, epidural and episitotomy are routine, where OB/GYNs are paid cash "gratuitities" by patients to "ensure" good outcomes and where c-section rates in some hospitals are reputed to be at 50%.
The price Agnes paid for going against the system was to be found guilty of "endangering life in the conduct of her professional work". She was sentenced to two years in prison. Earlier this year, the court of appeal doubled the suspension period of her medical and midwifery licenses to 10 years. (There is an international petition to support Agnes Gereb that already has over 10,000 signatures).
Next week we are filming at the Human Rights in Childbirth Conference in the Hague, Netherlands. The conference is looking at the implications of the Ternovsky vs Hungary 2010 ruling at the European Court of Human Rights.
Anna Ternovsky was a young pregnant Hungarian mother who had been supported by Agnes Gereb for her first home birth. Anna wanted to be reassured that an attending midwife would not be criminally prosecuted for supporting her second home birth.
Anna's lawyers argued under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights which provides a right to respect for one's "private and family life, his home and his correspondence", subject to certain restrictions that are "in accordance with law" and "necessary in a democratic society". The lawyers argued that Anna should be allowed to determine the circumstances and location of her birth.
Anna won the case. This means that any mother in Europe now has the same right. This is a game-changing potentially world-changing ruling that could inspire Human Rights lawyers in other countries if not continents to look to Human Rights to protect women's birth rights.
Just recently another mother called Ivana Pojatina filed a lawsuit against the Republic of Croatia at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg to protect her birth rights. Download file
This could be what the birth world and global birth advocates have been waiting for. However, whether European hospitals or birth care providers take positive action in the light of the Ternovsky ruling is another matter.
ONE WORLD BIRTH is releasing a documentary film this summer on this subject. The film features Agnes Gereb, Anna Ternovsky and many of the world's leading birth experts, amongst them legendary midwife Ina May Gaskin, MD and author Michel Odent, social anthropologist Sheila Kitzinger as well as many leading midwifery and obstetric professors.
To watch a 10 minute preview pitch video of our film featuring Agnes Gereb, Anna Ternovsky and many of the world's leading birth experts, please visit our website: oneworldbirth.net]]>Can One Film Change Birth Around The World?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.13724722012-03-22T10:36:37-04:002012-05-22T05:12:01-04:00Toni Harmanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/toni-harman/
Ask parents-to-be what they expect their birth to be like and you'll probably hear descriptions of fear, pain, a dramatic dash to hospital and a highly medicalised delivery. This image of birth is regularly reaffirmed by "I Almost Died in Childbirth" headlines and TV shows like ONE BORN EVERY MINUTE.
CALL THE MIDWIFEhas succeeded in projecting an image of birth as safe and positive in the hands of wonderful midwives, but that's a historical drama.
So what about birth in reality today?
I've always believed that filmmakers have the power to change the world. My mission is to show parents that birth can be a really positive experience and that it's achievable.
So starting March 22nd, I am coordinating hundreds of screenings around the world of my self-funded self-distributed documentary film DOULA! to coincide with World Doula Week.
DOULA!features three doula-supported births in intimate close-up detail. Two of the births are home water-births, the third birth progresses to a hospital c-section.
Doulas take their name from the Greek for "woman-servant" and although not medically trained, doulas are paid birth companions. They provide practical and emotional support to both parents through pregnancy, birth and early parenthood. Doulas are not a replacement to midwives, in fact our film highlights the amazing work of midwives in helping the mother to birth her baby.
As a filmmaker, I was inspired to focus on births after my daughter's difficult birth four years ago which resulted in an emergency c-section. That was before I knew about doulas. Before I knew that birth didn't have to be that way.
My first birth film REAL BIRTH STORIES features five couples' telling their warts-and-all birth stories. I wanted the film to reduce the fear of birth by telling expectant parents exactly what to expect step-by-step. At the premiere, a doula suggested my next film should be about doulas.
I luckily found parents who were willing to have me film their births. I shot, edited, produced and directed the film myself and together with my partner Alex Wakeford, we decided to self-distribute.
No-one can tell you how amazing and how beautiful birth can be. No-one can tell you what an amazing difference having a doula can make to your birth experience. You have to see it for yourself.
And that's why I have encouraged doulas around the world to set up their own local screenings. Anyone can host a screening during World Doula Week March 22-28 at any location for no fee.
The result is over 170 screenings happening across the globe from Alaska to Panama City, from the Scottish Highlands to Israel, from Eastern Europe to South East Asia.
Whether a woman has a natural delivery or a c-section, the film proves that whatever the circumstances, birth can be extremely positive and even beautiful for every expectant parent. If we can start to shift negative perceptions so that parents see what is possible and what is achievable, then we can start to transform the image of birth on a global scale.
If more women go into birth with less fear, ideally supported by a doula, then they'll be less likely to need medical intervention and more likely to breastfeed. A new survey by Doula UK released to coincide with World Doula Week bears this out.
The survey gathered data from 105 doulas and their 1,106 clients. The survey found that only 12 per cent of doula-supported births required medical interventions, such as the use of forceps, ventouse or C-sections, compared to the latest UK national figures of 37.3 per cent.
When it comes to breastfeeding, if supported by a doula, 93 per cent of women attempted breastfeeding compared to the latest Department of Health figure of 74.1 per cent. 70 per cent of mothers supported by a doula were still exclusively breastfeeding after six weeks compared to the UK national figure of 46 per cent.
I'm really proud of our DOULA! film and the positive message about birth it portrays. I am really excited that doulas around the world have seized this opportunity for hosting their own screenings.
So can one self-funded self-distributed documentary film change the world? I certainly hope so.
Toni Harman's and Alex Wakeford's next project is ONE WORLD BIRTH; a documentary and free educational video resource featuring the world's leading birth experts to help promote positive births.
Visit: www.oneworldbirth.net
]]>
