On July 19, Hulu aired the 88 minute documentary “Aftershock”, directed by Paula Eiselt and Tonya Lewis Lee, from Onyx and ABC News and shown at Sundance 2022, depicting the inferior health care to pregnant women of color.
The documentary traces the tragedy of two families in particular, where mothers died of childbirth complications. The tagline for the film is, “when a black mother dies there is a ripple effect.” The film focuses mostly in New York City, (a new women’s center is built in the Bronx), Tulsa OK, and Massachusetts.
The film maintains that sometimes doctors are quick to do cesarians rather than natural delivery. It is also critical of the way the practice of delivering babies has evolved. In the past, the deep south had black midwives who also delivered babies for the owners on the plantations. The field of delivery gradually became professionalized, but not always with good results.
Toward the end the film shows a natural delivery, up close and very graphically. The moment where the baby sees the outside world is very sharply delineated and he does breathe right away.
The film predates the overturning of Roe. But it is well to note that it is very dangerous to expect some women to carry pregnancies with major problems, and ectopic pregnancies can be treated only what is technically abortion (whether by medication or surgery). The sudden crackdowns in several red states have made it very difficult for some women to get medically necessary care, forcing them to become very ill before an ectopic is terminated.
I’ve met a male Air Force doctor whose specialty is to deliver babies (of female personnel or of spouses).
Back in 2008, Morgan Spurlock (who had thrown up in public in Supersize Me after eating at McDonald's without the supervision of Johnny Harris) made a film Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden? where he interviewed people randomly (in various places in the Middle East) on the villain and guessed right about Abbottabad. At the same time his own life was late in pregnancy and the film ends with him as an attentive husband when his wife gives natural birth to his son. A very nice Baxian epilogue indeed.
(Posted: Wednesday, July 27, 2022 at 10 PM EDT by John W Boushka)