3 days ago
A New Documentary Reveals Why America May Need A Birthing Revolution
A movement may be underway that offers a path toward a birthing revolution that works from within ... More the current healthcare system.
If the U.S. spends more money on maternal healthcare than most other high-income nations, why does it also have the highest rates of maternal and infant mortality comparatively? More than 80% of maternal deaths in the country are likely preventable, according to the CDC. Racial disparities persist, with Black women being two to three times more likely than white women to die during childbirth. Roughly one in three births in the U.S. are C-sections, yet the World Health Organization deems the ideal rate to be between 10 and 15 percent.
While the challenges are multifaceted and there is no single solution, the statistics indicate that America is in need of a birthing revolution. A movement may be underway that offers a path toward a birthing revolution that works from within the current healthcare system. It's being illuminated in a paradigm-shifting documentary called Fear and Now that premiers in June 2025 at Dances With Films festival in Los Angeles.
Liat Ron during her second pregnancy reading about the method of hypnobirthing.
It begins with film director Liat Ron sharing her unacknowledged traumatic first birth experience. 'It was a cascade of interventions and forced protocols; I had no control over what was happening to me,' says Ron in the film. The documentary also describes her mission to overcome her extreme fear of birth for her second pregnancy. This mission led Ron to discover the transformative power of hypnobirthing, which gives women a myriad of tools including breathing, relaxation, and visualization techniques, and accounts for both the physical and psychological well-being of the mother. The method reduces and even eliminates the fear-tension-pain cycle to help create a more gentle, enjoyable birth process.
Director Liat Ron while filming "Fear and Now."
The profound impact this particular method had on Ron to release fear and trauma and enable her second birthing experience to be enjoyable sparked her to embark upon a journey across the country to document the stories of parents, medical professionals, and birth workers who are also using hypnobirthing to put women back at the center of their birthing experience.
'I led myself to the dream birth I didn't know was possible, and that we all deserve to have. It changed my life,' says Ron. 'I do believe it is the best kept secret in the birthing world, but it's about time we all know what hypnobirthing really is. It's time we all have access to this birthing choice, if we decide it is for us.'
Teneha Smith, DNP, FNP-BC, RNFA, is a mother of three based in Orlando, Florida who shares her story in Fear and Now. I spoke to Smith who recounts how she had a near death experience during her first birth, and it took her 15 years before she could even consider becoming pregnant again.
'During my first [birthing experience], things happened so quickly out of my control,' says Smith. 'It's like I was standing beside myself watching all these things happen to me. It really traumatized me. I love my daughter and I was thankful for her, but after what I had gone through I told myself I would never do this again. I'm a type A personality. I like to be in control. I like to have things organized. And that experience completely broke me down.'
Smith said her husband had been talking about wanting to have more children for years, and she kept avoiding it until she got to the point where she did not want to let her first birthing experience overcome her and keep her from having more children. However, since she'd had her first daughter she had gone into the medical field to become a nurse practitioner, and was required to be present for births during her ob-gyn rotations.
'It just made my fear of birthing worse because it is like all the drama that you see on television,' she says. 'I knew there had to be another method, because my mother had all three of her children naturally.'
Smith came across the hypnobirthing method in her research, and at first was skeptical. 'It sounded mystical, like a spell was being cast or something,' she says. 'I did my research, and I found it wasn't Voodoo or something crazy, but it was really about the power of the mind.'
Teneha Smith shares her birthing story with Liat Ron while filming for the "Fear and Now" ... More documentary.
Smith says she appreciated how hypnobirthing also educates about the physical aspects of giving birth, such as how the uterus works and the way endorphins are released. But the focus is on how your mindset controls your body. 'The mind is powerful,' says Smith. 'Think about the placebo effect and how a patient who believes a pill will make them better often does in fact feel better while taking the placebo just from the power of the mind. So I embraced that.'
Smith went to the hypnobirthing class two times before she was even pregnant just to get her mind right, and then took the classes a third time once she became pregnant. She credits hypnobirthing with enabling her to have her next two births without an epidural or pain medication and to feel more in control of her birthing experience.
'Hypnobirthing teaches you to go within yourself, and to find your strength, whatever it is,' says Smith. 'For me, it was my faith in God. For other people it might be something else. But that's how I honestly overcame my fear of birth. And my support system.'
Some research shows that pregnant people who learn hypnobirthing techniques are less likely to need medical interventions such as C-sections, and their delivery periods are shorter. Other research finds links between hypnobirthing and reduced labor pain and lower rates of postpartum depression.
Delisa Skeete Henry, M.D., a board certified obstetrician and gynecologist of more than 20 years and owner of Serene Health OB-GYN & Wellness in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, who is also featured in Fear and Now, says she discovered hypnobirthing from a patient during her early years in private practice. Though it was the first time she heard of the method, she did her research and supported her patient's choice to leverage hypnobirthing, along with having a doula, for an unmedicated birth.
Since that experience, Dr. Skeete Henry, who does only hospital deliveries except during COVID, has continued to support women who want to use hypnobirthing, as well as other support strategies such as working with a doula and writing a birth plan. She says her practice's goal is to take a more holistic approach to prepare and educate women about what birth is, versus simply measuring the belly and listening to the baby.
"Fear and Now" director Liat Ron filming during COVID with Dr. Skeete Henry and her team at Serene ... More Health OB-GYN & Wellness.
'I've seen through hypnobirthing when women are able to accomplish—either intentionally or unintentionally—that euphoria, that joy, that burst of hormones,' says Dr. Skeete Henry. 'It empowers them. I think that an empowered mom who has been able to achieve something so amazing is going to be a better mom, a better partner, just a better person in society. Even if you're planning medication, planning for an epidural, or have to do a C-section, the hypnobirthing philosophy and education in my mind makes the whole process so much easier.'
It's important to note that interventions such as C-sections and inductions aren't always unnecessary and they can create positive outcomes and save lives. However, research finds that fewer interventions are needed when women have more autonomy in their birthing experience, such as by feeling they're able to make choices that are best for them in collaboration with their care providers, practice pain and anxiety management methods such as hypnobirthing, and have labor support such as a doula.
'We absolutely need medical professionals, but when it comes to certain things such as giving birth, you'll get a better experience and outcome if you collaborate with your doctor versus giving them full power and full authority over your birth story,' says Kymaletha Brown, LPC, MA, a mother of two based in Detroit, and a clinical mental health counselor, doula, and hypnobirthing educator. 'You know what's going on in your body. You're the one who's experiencing it. So it's important to get in tune with what you're experiencing, and take that power and align yourself mentally and physically. This will help you be more likely to have a safe, comfortable, and informed birth.'
One of a myriad of reasons birthing women in America may experience higher intervention rates, such as inductions and C-sections, is that doctors may feel more in control of the outcome or perceive lower risks by performing an intervention.
Dr. Lorne Campbell, M.D., who practiced family medicine in Johnson City, New York tells Ron in Fear and Now that doctors have developed a culture of fear of birthing, because we live in a litigious society and they're afraid of lawsuits. He also shares in the film how hypnobirthing changes the paradigm because the doctor's role becomes more of a support person rather than the driver. 'It's a completely mind-altering experience to be there with a woman and realize that if I put her in control, I get better outcomes than if I do it myself.'
The beauty of hypnobirthing is that it is a method that all birthing people can use, regardless of whether a woman is having a home or hospital birth, a medication-free birth or an epidural. 'The goal of hypnobirthing is not to grunt or power through labor so you can say, 'I did it without an epidural.' The idea is to labor with the least amount of intervention so that mom and baby are safe, and it's as pleasant an experience as possible,' says Smith.
Hypnobirthing teaches people mindset techniques, but it's also a holistic method that addresses everything from nutrition to having the right support system. 'It takes everything in you to give birth,' says Smith. 'You're in a vulnerable position. If you're not surrounded with the correct team that shares the same understanding and belief system that you do, you will bend to what others tell you to do no matter how strong you are.'
Smith says using hypnobirthing for her second and third deliveries helped her move from labor being traumatic to being a very empowering experience. 'It wouldn't have happened that way if my husband wasn't on board, or if my doula wasn't on board, and if I had not spoken to my midwife and let her know this is the way I wanted things to go,' Smith says.
A challenge is that in American medical culture rather than viewing birth as a natural process to stay out of unless there's a need for an intervention, it's viewed as a medicalized process. Fear and Now reveals how hypnobirthing is one method that can take something that's medicalized and scary, and turn it into an empowering experience.
'It can turn labor into something that you can look back on with pleasure and share it with your children versus it being like every other birth horror story that we always hear about,' says Smith. 'I really want birthing to be a positive, life-changing experience for women, and not what it has become in America today.'
While Fear and Now focuses specifically on hypnobirthing as a cornerstone of the maternal healthcare revolution, the heart of the documentary's message is about women being in the driver's seat of their birthing experience. If women are able to experience birthing from a place of empowerment rather than a place of fear, it could have a ripple effect of impacting how they show up across other areas of their life—and be a gift they give to the next generation. It's about tapping into inner strength, resilience, and ultimately, joy.
'I hope the film brings to light that there are options for birth,' says Dr. Skeete Henry. 'I hope more women are able to at least explore hypnobirthing, and I hope more women are empowered to speak up for themselves."
