The Birth Reborn 2 (O Renascimento do Parto 2)

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

PEDIATRIC DOCTOR AND EPIDEMIOLOGIST, PHD

OBSTETRICIAN

PHYSICIAN, PHD

OBSTETRIC NURSE

PEDIATRIC NEONATOLOGIST DOCTOR

OBSTETRICIAN

OBSTETRIC NURSE

PHOTOGRAPHER

MODEL AND TV HOST

OBSTETRIC NURSE

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,