Childbirth: natural event, not medical emergency – how a film changed restaurateur Lindsay Jang’s life

Polemical documentary feature The Business of Being Born (2008), directed by Abby Epstein and produced by actor and talk-show host Ricki Lake, who is also one of its interview subjects, attacks the medicalisation and cost of childbirth in the United States.

Presenting home births overseen by midwives as a preferable alternative to hospitals and obstetricians, the film advocates treating childbirth as a natural event rather than a medical emergency. Lindsay Jang, co-founder of restaurants Yardbird and Ronin, explains how it changed her life.

I saw The Business of Being Born about 10 years ago, when I was pregnant and living in New York. My ob-gyn (obstetri­cian-gynaecologist) was at a downtown hospital. I was well into my third tri­mester, 34 weeks pregnant, and they told us the statistics: the chance I was going to have a caesarean at this particular hospital was upwards of 70 per cent. I was like, what? It had never crossed my mind before. I thought, “I don’t need a caesarean; I’m perfectly healthy; my mother had three kids.” I completely freaked out.

I’m not sure who recommended the movie. It might just have been through googling the subject. I just knew that I needed to have more control of the whole process. I didn’t want to leave it in the hands of a doctor who wants to get home for dinner and so I have to have major surgery. The movie opened my eyes. It affected how I had my two children.

Luckily my insurance covered the cost of a midwife, and I managed to find one who was happy to be taken on after 34 weeks. I didn’t go back to the doctor. Then I had my son in Hong Kong. I couldn’t afford to go to the Matilda or the Sanatorium, and I knew I would end up at the Queen Mary, which is a great hospital if you have a complication but I preferred not to go there. I found a midwife, and my only option was to do it at home.