Think Act Change: How Doulas, Midwives and Home Births Are Revolutionizing the Business of Being Born — 11/16

Ricki Lake, Executive Producer, 2008
Abby Epstein, Director
USA | 87′ (English)
CRS Community Films and Think Act Change NYC invite you to screen and discuss THE BUSINESS OF BEING BORN, an eye-opening examination of childbirth methods — including midwives, natural births, epidurals, and Cesarean sections. Built around a graphic scene in which its executive producer, Ricki Lake, the actress and former talk-show host, gives birth on camera to her second child at home in a bathtub attended by a midwife, this culture-changing documentary awakened millions of women to the possibility that traditional birthing methods can provide a safe and superior experience for mother and child. 
Still widely practiced in Europe and Japan, home birth has largely disappeared in the United States due to the American health care system’s portrayal of it as a primitive, unsanitary ritual. This film compels families to reconsider that notion, probing the obscured reasons why traditional birthing practices became so marginalized in the United States and why, despite having the most expensive and medicalized birth care in the world, the US now ranks only 50th in maternity survival rate.
Tickets are free but seating is limited and first come, first serve. 
Doula Chanel Porchia from Ancient Song Doula Services will be joining us to talk about her calling into midwifery and the training certification her organization provides to help women of color from low income families get the quality maternal care they need to give birth and care for child. Chanel founded Ancient Song Doula Services in the Fall of 2008 after experiencing the birth of her first child at home. She is the mother of four beatuiful children, an Activist, a Certified Labor & Postpartum Doula, a Certified Lactation Counselor, a Midwifery Assistant and Student, a Vegan Chef, and a Certified Holistic Health Counselor specializing in High Risk Mothers, Multiples, and Survivors of Sexual Trauma and DV. She is also the co-trainer for ASDS trainings. 
Ancient Song Doula Services’ mission is to offer all women, regardless of their socio-economic standing, quality Doula Care and to empower young mothers to make healthy choices in their lives. Ancient Song is committed to the lowering of the Infant Mortality Rate by changing the way mothers view birthing, advocating on behalf of all mothers, and challenging the current healthcare system’s quality of care regardless of one’s socio-economic standing.
What is a doula? 
The word “doula” comes from the ancient Greek meaning “a woman who serves” and is now used to refer to a trained and experienced professional who provides continuous physical, emotional and informational support to the mother before, during and just after birth; or who provides emotional and practical support during the postpartum period. — DONA International
 

About CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) and Social Activism
As you may know, CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) is a center for the teaching and practice of A Course in Miracles (ACIM). Many people see the Course as being solely about changing the mind rather than behavior, about finding peace in one’s own mind by accepting external circumstances (as being unimportant, indeed unreal) rather than trying to change them. However, the Course also says (in an earlier edition) that once your mind returns to love, 
You now share my inability to tolerate the lack of love in yourself and in everyone else, and must join the Great Crusade to correct it. The slogan for this Crusade is ‘Listen, Learn, and Do.’ This means Listen to My Voice, Learn to undo the error, and do something to correct it. The first two are not enough. The real members of my party are active workers. — A Course in Miracles Urtext (T-1.26).
Therefore, we at CRS actively support all forms of social action that are motivated by love and the goal of undoing the obstacles to love in the world. That starts with changing our own minds by returning our own thoughts to love and then spreads when we help others to do the same.

Watch trailerThink Act Change Web Site
November 2013164:15 pm