Kate Gorman - Director Producer

This film has been a long journey. So much has changed surrounding the issue and awareness of home birth during our 2-year shoot that it’s been hard to keep up!

So too, the film that I set out to make has changed. From when pregnant for the third time and enraged to learn that the government was about to put an end to my choice of home birth, it has expanded as I let the film be about so much more than my having to ‘do something’ to bring awareness to the issue.

As a film maker, story teller and home birth mother myself, I wanted to dispel some of the myths in our culture about who or what a home birth mother/family is, and explore the facts and figures of safety and best birth outcomes.

I had no idea how much I would learn about people, both the mothers and the maternity professionals, and of course I have learnt so much about, and from working, with Gavin. It has been such an amazing experience and I am very grateful to everyone who let us into their homes and lives.

Our society has always had an oral tradition of telling birth stories. Today, sadly our folklore surrounding birth is completely based in fear, the stories are sometimes horrific and often told to you for the first time when you are pregnant! I am so happy to be able to bring these women’s empowered birth stories to light. Birth is a very intimate and unique experience, so a big thank you to all the Face Of Birth mothers for sharing and helping change our folklore.

Its also a great conversation starter at parties. 

"What do you do?” 

"Well, actually I am making a documentary about home birth …". 

I haven’t met anyone yet who didn’t want to know more, and didn’t have an opinion. After all everyone has been born.

I hope this film moves, entertains, informs and most of all, helps women feel empowered to make informed choices for having their babies, helps them have empowered births with great outcomes, without fear.
For as every mother knows, that moment when you catch and hold your newborn to your bare skin is the beginning of falling in love. How and where this happens is the first of a million choices that you will make for your child. Every choice needs to be respected for every women and there needs to be the support to help her achieve the birth she wants whenever medically possible.

Gavin Banks - Director Producer

Home birth. It continues to amaze me how impassioned people become when discussing this topic. Yet very few people know much about it, or those who choose it - and why.

Regardless, almost everyone has an opinion about the right or wrong way to give birth. Some argue that caesarean section is the modern way, while others are convinced that their baby would have died had they not been in hospital. In opposition to these beliefs, a growing minority maintain that home is the safest place to have a baby. But who, if anyone, is right? And upon what evidence do they base their claims?

One of the things that drew me to The Face of Birth, apart from an interest in sorting out fact from fiction around home birth (and safe childbirth in general), is the opportunity to compare and contrast Australian maternity services (largely opposed to home birth), with those of the UK (which promote it). How can two societies so similar - and the professionals within those cultures - have such different positions? And where do the rights of the individual fit into the equation about such a personal decision?

This is a film about modern women, for modern women (and their families). Through a journey into the lives of those who choose to birth away from hospital, and the controvecy around their choices, we seek to understand what is important in pregnancy and childbirth. How important is choice? What determines safety? And what impact do the choices we make at this critical time of our lives have on us personally, our families and our society? These are important questions that our film seeks to answer. One thing we know for sure is that, rather than be prescriptive, we need to put women at the centre of the debate about what birth is and should be.