The Other Side of the Glass

Part One was officially released June 2013 in digital distribution format. To purchase to to www.theothersideoftheglass.com If you were a donor and want to download your copy send an email to theothersideoftheglassfilm@gmail.com.

The trailer

Friday, January 14, 2011

The Other Side of the Glass

What if men had had any idea of what was happening to their loved ones?




12 comments:

Anonymous said...

My dad told me a couple years back that when he was born in 1955, his father was one of the first at that hospital to be "allowed" in the delivery room. But, my dad said, it was mostly b/c the OB was a friend of his AND the OB firmly told his dad (my grandpa) that if he tried to interfere in ANY way during the birth that he'd be kicked out. He was basically told to just sit there and do nothing. Sheesh.

Not surprising, of course, but insightful none-the-less.

This is Sarah Baker, btw, your fb friend from Missouri and EOF admin. :)

Anonymous said...

Correction: 1953.

Baby Keeper said...

Hey, Sarah!

My dad was in the room with all six of us, 1949 to 1970, me in 1956. People ask me how I knew to do a film about fathers. Recently when I asked him about the last three .... since I realized we never hear those stories but the first three of us, we hear all the time. He said it was too much. He must have shut down. Then I asked him how he came to be in the room. He said, "Your mother wanted me in there and so I was." (Also in her breast biopsy too in the 60's.) He said he was allowed in but couldn't do anything ... so basically, he just "witnessed" the horrors. The doctor took him out in hallway of first birth and said he couldn't say them both. Asked which one to save ... my dad said my mom and then witnessed my brother's birth with force that could kill him. It's a friggin' miracle he doesn't have CP. He cried for first month of life and his neck was off. My grandparents took him to a chiropractor and it was "resolved" physically. The second, my sister, was born in labor bed. My dad went to get the nurse who was at supper. Before she left my mom told her baby was coming. She said, "No, dear, you have a long time to go." Shortly after my sister was born. My dad went to get nurse and she said to my dad, "I TOLD YOU the doctor is not here and it's going to be awhile." HE said, "I TOLD YOU the baby is HERE!" She said, "I don't believe you." (Cuz, a dumb farm boy who has seen a lot of animals give birth would know for sure that a baby came out his wife's vagina." He said, "Well, come see for yourself." Nurses got in trouble for not forcing women to wait for doctor. Then, there was me ... a longer story. BUT, this is why MY INNER BABY KNOWS that it IS harmful for men to have witnessed what they have and then have NO PLACE to process it ... and it has disempowered them so that now generations later men can't protected their partners and babies in the hospital.

Anonymous said...

Wow, that's quite a powerful testimony about your dad. Powerful in such a sad and truthful way. Thank you for elaborating on your family's experience.

My husband and I still hold firmly in defending his decision to NOT be present with me when I experienced a c-section with my most recent baby. (Long story--but the gist is that I worked to ensure that if I had a cesearean, it would be done according to MY wishes--with practices that make it as mom/baby-friendly as could be possible with a traumatic event like a c-section.)My husband had made the decision that if I needed a c-section, he just did not feel comfortable being present. Of course, his first reason is that he is horribly terrified of anything medical and/or bodily fluids and was certain he'd either pass out or puke. BUT, then he also was concerned that his memory of our baby's birth would be a very traumatic memory. We both knew I would have my doula present--and that I felt quite confident in her ability to support me thru a cesarean--and knew that he would NOT be able to be there for me emotionally during such circumstances. I 100% fully supported his decision to not be present for her actual birth. (And I would also 100% him if he ever decided to not be present for any future vaginal births. I know what I need during labor/birth and I also know that men are not really equipped to support women during birth!)

He took a lot of flack from people when they found out he wasn't there in the OR during my c-section. I always told him, "You can make sure the tell all those people, 'My wife fully supported my decision not to be present and did NOT feel abadoned by me!!'" As it was, I found out some time later that he puked like 4 times before and during my cesarean while he was waiting!! He does not handle stress well. :)

Janel Baby Keeper said...

This great story to illustrate the peer and social pressure upon men. The father also needs to trusted to know what he can and cannot handle. It's between you two and everyone else can ... uhm, shut up and go away. ;-)

strat said...

I kinda like the middle picture. It looks so real.

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ThomasJr said...

If you can see, a woman's pain is even greater than a man's pain. Giving birth is like bringing yourself to death, but thanks to the courage and strength that the child is giving, a mom's pain has been vanished after. My Arizona personal injury lawyer as with me when I gave birth. Whatever happens, he knows and he can defend me if ever something not right happened.

The Deranged Housewife said...

LOL at the above spam comment - yeah, I bet!

Great photos - did they come from National Geographic, by any chance?

GaretT_T said...

Giving birth is never a joke. It is true that one of your foot is on the graveyard. I am grateful for being a mom! My arizona medical malpractice liked this. Thanks a lot.

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"Soft is the heart of a child. Do not harden it."

A public awareness reminder that things that happen behind the scenes, out of our sight, aren't always as rosy as we might think them to be. Perhaps its a restaurant cook who accidentally drops your burger on the floor before placing it on the bun and serving it to you. Here it's an overworked apathetic (pathetic) nurse giving my newborn daughter her first bath. Please comment and rate this video, so as to insure that it is viewed as widely as possible, perhaps to prevent other such abuse. -- The mother who posted this YouTube. How NOT to wash a baby on YouTube Are you going to try to tell me that "babies don't remember?" There is no difference to this baby's experience and the imprinting of her nervous system/brain and one that is held and cleaned by the mother or father either at the hospital or at home? By the way, this is probably NOT the baby's first bath. The nurse is ungloved. Medical staff protocol is that they can't handle a baby ungloved until is has been bathed (scrubbed if you've seen it) because the baby is a BIO-HAZARD -- for them. Never mind that the bio-hazard IS the baby's first line of defense against hospital germs.

Missouri Senator Louden Speaks

Finally, A Birth Film for Fathers

Part One of the "The Other Side of the Glass: Finally, A Birth Film for and about Men" was released June, 2013.

Through presentation of the current research and stories of fathers, the routine use of interventions are questioned. How we protect and support the physiological need of the human newborn attachment sequence is the foundation for creating safe birth wherever birth happens.

Based on knowing that babies are sentient beings and the experience of birth is remembered in the body, mind, and soul, fathers are asked to research for themselves what is best for their partner and baby and to prepare to protect their baby.

The film is designed for midwives, doulas, and couples, particularly fathers to work with their caregivers. Doctors and nurses in the medical environment are asked to "be kind" to the laboring, birthing baby, and newborn. They are called to be accountable for doing what science has been so clear about for decades. The mother-baby relationship is core for life. Doctors and nurses and hospital caregivers and administrators are asked to create protocols that protect the mother-baby relationship.

Men are asked to join together to address the vagaries of the medical system that harm their partner, baby and self in the process of the most defining moments of their lives. Men are asked to begin to challenge the system BEFORE they even conceive babies as there is no way to be assured of being able to protect his loved ones once they are in the medical machine, the war zone, on the conveyor belt -- some of the ways that men describe their journey into fatherhood in the medicine culture.

Donors can email theothersideoftheglassfilm@gmail.com to get a digital copy.
Buy the film at www.theothersideoftheglass.com.

The film focuses on the male baby, his journey from the womb to the world and reveals healing and integrating the mother, father, and baby's wounded birth experience. The film is about the restoring of our families, society, and world through birthing loved, protected, and nurtured males (and females, of course). It's about empowering males to support the females to birth humanity safely, lovingly, and consciously.

Finally, a birth film for fathers.

What People Are Saying About the FIlm

Well, I finally had a chance to check out the trailer and .. wow! It's nice that they're acknowledging the father has more than just cursory rights (of course mom's rights are rarely acknowledged either) and it's great that they're bringing out the impact of the experience on the newborn, but I'm really impressed that they're not shying away from the political side.

They are rightly calling what happens in every American maternity unit, every day, by its rightful name - abuse. Abuse of the newborn, abuse of the parents and their rights, abuse of the supposedly sacrosanct ethical principal of patient autonomy and the medico-legal doctrine of informed consent, which has been long ago discarded in all but name. I love it!

In the immortal words of the "shrub", "bring it on!" This film needs to be shown and if I can help facilitate or promote it, let me know.

Father in Asheville, NC


OMG'ess, I just saw the trailer and am in tears. This is so needed. I watch over and over and over as fathers get swallowed in the fear of hospitals birth practice. I need a tool like this to help fathers see how very vital it is for them to protect their partner and baby. I am torn apart every time I see a father stand back and chew his knuckle while his wife is essentially assaulted or his baby is left to lie there screaming.
Please send me more info!!!!
Carrie Hankins
CD(DONA), CCCE, Aspiring Midwife
720-936-3609


Thanks for sharing this. It was very touching to me. I thought of my brother-in-law standing on the other side of the glass when my sister had to have a C-section with her first child because the doctor was missing his golf date. I'll never forget his pacing back and forth and my realizing that he was already a father, even though he hadn't been allowed to be with his son yet.

Margaret, Columbia, MO

In case you don't find me here

Soon, I'll be back to heavy-duty editing and it will be quiet here again. I keep thinking this blog is winding down, and then it revives. It is so important to me.

I wish I'd kept a blog of my journey with this film this past 10 months. It's been amazing.

I have a new blog address for the film, and will keep a journal of simple reporting of the journey for the rest of the film.


www.theothersideoftheglassthefilm.blogspot.com


I'll be heading east this week to meet with a group of men. I plan to post pictures and clips on the film blog.

I'll keep up here when I can -- when I learn something juicy, outrageous, or inspiring related to making birth safer for the birthing baby.

Review of the film

Most of us were born surrounded by people who had no clue about how aware and feeling we were. This trailer triggers a lot of emotions for people if they have not considered the baby's needs and were not considered as a baby. Most of us born in the US were not. The final film will include detailed and profound information about the science-based, cutting-edge therapies for healing birth trauma.

The full film will have the interviews of a wider spectrum of professionals and fathers, and will include a third birth, at home, where the caregivers do a necessary intervention, suctioning, while being conscious of the baby.

The final version will feature OBs, RNs, CNMs, LM, CPM, Doulas, childbirth educators, pre and perinatal psychologists and trauma healing therapists, physiologists, neurologists, speech therapists and lots and lots of fathers -- will hopefully be done in early 2009.

The final version will include the science needed to advocated for delayed cord clamping, and the science that shows when a baby needs to be suctioned and addresses other interventions. Experts in conscious parenting will teach how to be present with a sentient newborn in a conscious, gentle way -- especially when administering life-saving techniques.

The goal is to keep the baby in the mother's arms so that the baby gets all of his or her placental blood and to avoid unnecessary, violating, and abusive touch and interactions. When we do that, whether at home or hospital, with doctor or midwife, the birth is safe for the father. The "trick" for birthing men and women is how to make it happen in the hospital.

Birth Trauma Healing

Ani DeFranco Speaks About Her Homebirth

"Self-Evident" by Ani DeFranco

Patrick Houser at www.Fatherstobe.org

Colin speaks out about interventions at birth

Dolphins