Puget Sound Gets BOLD to Improve Childbirth Choices for Mothers with Performances of the Play:Birth

BOLD Challenges New Resolution Sponsored by American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

BOLD, the global movement to create childbirth choices that work for mothers, brings together artists, community groups and childbirth leaders for BOLD Performance events will bring the issue of childbirth choices for mothers center stage for the third year in Seattle, Vashon, Tacoma and Olympia. Performances of playwright/ BOLD founder Karen Brody’s play Birth will be taking place throughout September and are sponsored locally by Seattle Midwifery School, The Birthing Inn of Tacoma, and Pregnant in Puget Sound.

Birth is a critically-acclaimed documentary-style play that tells the birth stories of eight women, painting an alarming picture of how low-risk, educated mothers are giving birth today. Hailed “The Vagina Monologues for birth” by women’s health expert Dr. Christiane Northrup, over 100 performances of the play Birth are happening in cities across America during September, the month of Labor Day, to raise awareness and money for childbirth choices that work for mothers. Proceeds from performances of Birth will benefit local organizations working to improve birth choices for mothers.

“Through BOLD we have seen how art can influence change. The time is now to be bold and make childbirth choices work for mothers, to create a movement that supports birth choices and helps women access the powerful experience available to them when giving birth,” stated BOLD founder Karen Brody.

A recent resolution sponsored by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and adopted by the American Medical Association has made it clear that now is the time to be BOLD. The resolution suggests home birth and “lay” midwives are not safe options for giving birth despite clear medical evidence to the contrary. BOLD challenges this assertion and believes resolutions like this significantly jeopardize the right every woman has to make the birth choice that works for her.

The largest, most respected study of home births from the British Journal of Medicine found that among 5,000 low-risk pregnancies, babies were delivered just as safely at home with a certified professional midwife as in a hospital. (http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/330/7505/1416?ehom)

“This is a critical moment in childbirth today, one where we have found the institutions who are supposed to keep us healthy and safe have instead ignored the medical evidence,” stated Brody. “The evidence clearly states a hospital is not the only setting in which women can give birth safely. It’s critical this information is known by women, now more than ever.”

Since BOLD’s founding in 2006, education about the issue of choices in childbirth - through watching the play Birth and the post-show talkback – has been at the heart of BOLD’s efforts. Local BOLD talkback panels will include physicians, nurses, midwives, doulas and other birth professionals.

A paperback edition of the play, including a foreword by Dr. Christiane Northrup and emails and stories from BOLD locations, will available in August 2008.

Puget Sound area performances and venues:

9/5,6,7 – Broadway Performance Hall, Capitol Hill, Seattle

9/20 - Vashon Island High School Theatre

9/26 – Tacoma Community College Theatre

9/27 – Evergreen State College Recital Hall, Olympia