Public/Private: Gloves/Bareskin

There has been a lot of talk in the birth community about The Business of Being Born.
Natural birth advocates seem happy since it is a film that is clearly promoting women's education and informed choices towards safe and empowered childbirth experiences.
The medical community is raising a threatened fist, with a lot of comments about skewed statistics and woowoo medicine.
Now, my sense is that statistics in general are a crock of BS used mostly for propaganda. They can usually be dis-proven with a different focus group. The statistics in this film may be skewed, but certainly not any more skewed than those that the medical establishment uses to frighten women into what is often unnecessary intervention.

What this film has done is to bring something that is usually very private into the public sphere. Sure, 'A Baby Story' on TLC did it first, but they tend to highlight only hospital births with doctors screaming, women hooked to machines, flat on their backs and drugged to the point of delirium. I cannot watch 'A Baby Story' without wanting to throw something at my TV. Fortunately, I don't have cable, so I still have a TV.

I went to see the film with a group of girlfriends and one girlfriend's brave male partner. There were seven of us, all in the birth community, in a theater full of pregnant women, midwives, doulas and a smattering of men. A bit tragic since the film was truly preaching to the choir with that audience, but we have to start somewhere.

Here is what made me cringe:
Cara, the NYC homebirth midwife featured in the film, is not wearing gloves in three of the highlighted births she attends. Gloves, as I see it, are something everyone can agree on.
An abundance of latex gloves is a tremendous benefit and privilege of first world medicine. Even if you know a woman's health status, gloves are smart. Personally, I don't care if Cara wears gloves. This is her choice, and for whatever reason, she doesn't see them as necessary. My cringe though, was for the attack that I felt coming from the medical community. It seemed fuel for the argument that home birth midwives are untrained and unsafe. "Cara", I thought, "you knew you were being filmed. Why didn't you throw on some gloves?".

I went home with this thought. But the more I thought about it, the more my own thought bothered me. Why would I want Cara to put on gloves to give some sort of illusion to the medical community? Isn't that exactly the point? Home birth midwifery IS off the grid. We all practice differently and while the medical community attacks that, we embrace it. We see this diversity as the juice, the good stuff, in helping women choose the best possible route to having an amazing passage into motherhood.

I locate this thought in the binary between public and private, most things that occur in the body live in this space (hence, the body politic). Somehow, I want to prove to the medical community that homebirth midwifery is a smart, effective, cost efficient and SAFE way to have a baby, while at the same time remaining true to the nature and essence of midwifery which supports individual choice and interpersonal relationships. Clearly, Cara felt safe enough with these women to expose her bare hands to their bodily fluids. We should trust that. I may not make the same choice (even with my closest friends), but I support hers and her bravery in exposing that to the scrutiny of those who want to shut us down.

Perhaps more on this later. I would love to hear thoughts.