You are invited to attend a screening of
Orgasmic Birth
A remarkable new documentary that examines the sensual and intimate nature of birth.

WHEN: Thursday, May 28th, 2009

TIME: 6:30pm doors open

7:00pm movie start

8:30pm panel discussion

WHERE: Santa Cruz Veteran's Memorial Building

TICKETS: Suggested donation $5 to $15 - You may buy them here or at the door.

BENEFITING: Birth Network of Santa Cruz County

www.BirthNet.org

Orgasmic Birth, a new documentary film by internationally respected educator, doula, and birthing expert Debra Pascali-Bonaro, dismantles untruths about labor and birth that women have been (mis)led to believe for generations. The film, now being shown worldwide at film festivals and private screenings, captures stunning moments of women riding waves of pleasure in the ecstatic release of childbirth. Through their example, the viewer begins to understand that labor and birth are meant to be enjoyed, not endured.

Orgasmic Birth asks viewers to reexamine what they think they know about giving birth and the potential it holds. Obstetrician-gynecologist and best-selling author Christiane Northrup, MD, one of many birth experts interviewed in the film, says, “When you allow yourself to open [during birth] in the same way that you open to orgasm, the same experience is possible.”

Other well-known birth specialists who appear in the film include Ina May Gaskin, founder/
director of the Farm Midwifery Center in Summertown, Tenn.; Sarah J Buckley, MD, author of Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering; Elizabeth Davis, BA, CPM, co-founder and director of the National Midwifery Institute; and maternity care specialist Marsden Wagner, MD, former director of Women's and Children's Health for the World Health Organization.

In the film, Ina May explains the phenomenon of the normal rhythms of labor:

Women don't have a way to know how their body works until they really try it out in birth. I think that women can be completely surprised by the change in them from giving birth.

You have something powerful in you—that fierce thing comes up. I think babies need moms to have that fierceness. You feel like you can do anything, and that's the feeling we want moms to have.

“Undisturbed birth is an integral part of woman’s sexuality and a widely neglected human right,” states Pascali-Bonaro, who began videotaping births around the world more than five years ago as the film began to take shape. Her goal: to educate and inspire people to consider their options and the implications of the circumstances of birth for women's and babies' health and well-being. As Dr. Northrup cautions in the film, people have been “brainwashed” to view birth not as a natural process but as “an emergency waiting to happen.”

On the contrary, Pascali-Bonaro asserts, the body is well prepared to handle birth on its own. During labor and birth, oxytocin, the 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.

The couples featured in Orgasmic Birth share a commitment to broadcasting the truth about the heights to which birth can soar. They candidly discuss their fears and reveal ways in which support and nurturing empowered them to labor and birth their babies safely and pleasurably.

Witness the everyday miracle of pleasurable birth in this remarkable film and understand how different birth can be from the sorry standard of care in the United States today.


For more about the film, please visit www.orgasmicbirth.com.