I put out a survey to people who attended the premiere screening of "Midwife" (it was sent out to the people who purchased tickets through EventBrite), and here are some of the results. A total of 80 people completed the survey:
92% of respondents thought that the film was either "Excellent" (62%) or "Very Good" (30%).
91% were either "Extremely Likely" (74%) or "Very Likely" (17%) to recommend the movie to a friend.
One person wrote:
"I loved the film. Best birth film I've ever seen! I liked how it focused on women's experiences of home birth - concentrating on the births and prenatal care even more than the politics, statistics, controversy over safety, etc. It took as a starting assumption that home birth is a reasonable thing to do, that the midwives who attend women are smart and competent, and that the people who choose to birth at home are normal, reflective human beings. Loved it!"
And another said:
"The film was fabulous, and I loved watching it surrounded by so many passionate about the topic."
However...
2% of respondents thought that the film was "Not good at all", and actually seemed quite angry about it.
They wrote:
"I understand that there is a divide between CPMs and CNMs and those who do home births vs. those who practice in a hospital but I guess I was caught off guard by how strong this message was relayed in your film. I went to the movie with a friend who has experienced 4 normal physiologic hospital births and she left the movie feeling like she made the "wrong" choice when it came to her care. Not in a way that would make her choose homebirth the next time around because she knows that isn't the best choice for her but moreso in a way that made her doubt herself, which I thought was really unfortunate. I understand the goal of the film, but I think it was a great disservice to much of the childbearing-aged audience by villianizing a very common and prudent choice when choosing a hospital-based midwife as a birth attendant and only fueling the already existing divide that there is between the two professions (CPM and CNM)."
and
"Instead of a positive story about home birth there was a need to attack and defame other midwives. How do we expect to promote midwife attended birth in all settings and fewer doctor attended births with the need to attack fellow midwives. Go back to the edit room and create a positive story of pushing forward."
I wanted to address this a bit, because I certainly don't want anyone to leave the movie feeling bad, or angry, or like the film is judging their birth choices.
First of all I just want to say this is a movie about the home birth midwife. It's not about hospital birth, or unassisted birth, or any other types of birth. It is a movie that is exploring the world of home birth midwifery. Remember that documentary Spellbound, that followed around finalists in the National Spelling Bee? That documentary did not follow around kids who weren't able to spell very well, because that was not the story it was trying to tell. It might have been an interesting story, comparing the differences between good spellers and poor spellers, but it would have been a different movie entirely.
I'm not trying to say that one type of birth is "good" and one type is "bad", because that is not what was about at all. I was really just trying to show what home birth looked like, in its entirety. And part of doing that was talking about the difference between a hospital-based CNM and a home birth midwife... because there IS a difference. It's not the same profession. And in order to talk about home birth midwifery fully, I needed to talk about that difference. I felt it was important.
I'm reading this book called Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. And it's just that: a book about introverts. It talks about the benefits of being an introvert. It talks about how being an introvert is different from being an extrovert. But it does not talk about extroverts, other than in relation to introverts.
That is what Midwife is. It's a movie about home birth midwifery. That's it.
I hope that makes sense. And I hope that my film doesn't make very many other people feel "wrong" about their birth choices.
If you have seen the movie and would like to fill out the survey, please do so here.
92% of respondents thought that the film was either "Excellent" (62%) or "Very Good" (30%).
91% were either "Extremely Likely" (74%) or "Very Likely" (17%) to recommend the movie to a friend.
One person wrote:
"I loved the film. Best birth film I've ever seen! I liked how it focused on women's experiences of home birth - concentrating on the births and prenatal care even more than the politics, statistics, controversy over safety, etc. It took as a starting assumption that home birth is a reasonable thing to do, that the midwives who attend women are smart and competent, and that the people who choose to birth at home are normal, reflective human beings. Loved it!"
And another said:
"The film was fabulous, and I loved watching it surrounded by so many passionate about the topic."
However...
2% of respondents thought that the film was "Not good at all", and actually seemed quite angry about it.
They wrote:
"I understand that there is a divide between CPMs and CNMs and those who do home births vs. those who practice in a hospital but I guess I was caught off guard by how strong this message was relayed in your film. I went to the movie with a friend who has experienced 4 normal physiologic hospital births and she left the movie feeling like she made the "wrong" choice when it came to her care. Not in a way that would make her choose homebirth the next time around because she knows that isn't the best choice for her but moreso in a way that made her doubt herself, which I thought was really unfortunate. I understand the goal of the film, but I think it was a great disservice to much of the childbearing-aged audience by villianizing a very common and prudent choice when choosing a hospital-based midwife as a birth attendant and only fueling the already existing divide that there is between the two professions (CPM and CNM)."
and
"Instead of a positive story about home birth there was a need to attack and defame other midwives. How do we expect to promote midwife attended birth in all settings and fewer doctor attended births with the need to attack fellow midwives. Go back to the edit room and create a positive story of pushing forward."
I wanted to address this a bit, because I certainly don't want anyone to leave the movie feeling bad, or angry, or like the film is judging their birth choices.
First of all I just want to say this is a movie about the home birth midwife. It's not about hospital birth, or unassisted birth, or any other types of birth. It is a movie that is exploring the world of home birth midwifery. Remember that documentary Spellbound, that followed around finalists in the National Spelling Bee? That documentary did not follow around kids who weren't able to spell very well, because that was not the story it was trying to tell. It might have been an interesting story, comparing the differences between good spellers and poor spellers, but it would have been a different movie entirely.
I'm not trying to say that one type of birth is "good" and one type is "bad", because that is not what was about at all. I was really just trying to show what home birth looked like, in its entirety. And part of doing that was talking about the difference between a hospital-based CNM and a home birth midwife... because there IS a difference. It's not the same profession. And in order to talk about home birth midwifery fully, I needed to talk about that difference. I felt it was important.
I'm reading this book called Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. And it's just that: a book about introverts. It talks about the benefits of being an introvert. It talks about how being an introvert is different from being an extrovert. But it does not talk about extroverts, other than in relation to introverts.
That is what Midwife is. It's a movie about home birth midwifery. That's it.
I hope that makes sense. And I hope that my film doesn't make very many other people feel "wrong" about their birth choices.
If you have seen the movie and would like to fill out the survey, please do so here.
