Q&A with Zoe Naylor from Birth Time: the Documentary

Birth Time: the Documentary follow three women who embark on a mission to find out why an increasing number of women are emerging from their births physically and emotionally traumatised. Their discoveries expose the truth and lead them to join the birth revolution and forge a movement that hopes to change the face of maternity care in Australia and across the developed world. We chat with Zoe Naylor the co-founder of Birth Time (the movement) and co-writer, director and producer of Birth Time: the documentary.

 

Verve Magazine’s Fran Ninow: I was deeply touched by your movie, basically because it made me take a look at a process I had experienced so many years ago, one that I had never really questioned, but should have (my sons are 31 and 34).  While it is a movie about birthing, it is also about asking questions, taking control, and doing what is right for one’s self – things I probably should be doing more often.  So thank you.

 

Zoe Naylor: You’re welcome…. And thank you for taking the time to watch it.

 

What prompted you to create this documentary?

The birth of my second child changed me in a way that I didn’t even know was possible from child birth. I had experienced birth trauma with the birth of my first child and postnatal depression after that. It was clear from the research we conducted across the developed world maternity systems are broken. We have a postnatal depression epidemic, with suicide being the leading cause of maternal death in the developed world. Birth trauma is rampant.

We have incredibly high intervention rates in birth, yet research shows that this is not leading to better outcomes for mothers and babies. We are losing connection and trust in one of the most transformative, powerful, primal and pivotal rites of passage we will ever undertake in our lives. We live in a time where it has become normal to disregard the importance of a woman’s experience of birth. It is not widely known that our birth and birthing experiences deeply impact the way we navigate the world.

Improving women’s experience of birth helps them set up a stronger bond with their babies, decreases their risk of postnatal depression and encourages them to trust their maternal instincts when it comes to mothering their children. Care, connection, respect and trust begin with the mother baby bond.

We made this documentary as a catalyst to motivate action and instigate change. When we improve women’s experiences around birth, we change the world!

 

Who do you feel should see the movie?

Young women, young men, pregnant women and people, mothers, partners, grandparents, families, birth workers, midwives, doctors, policy makers, politicians, organisations and corporations.

 

What are some of the challenges you faced?

We were three women who didn’t have any experience in making a documentary but who shared a passionate shared ‘why’ and a hunger to find out what was happening in our maternity care systems across the developed world. We simply followed our noses starting with one interview at a time, asking one central question, ‘What would it take for all women to emerge from their births physically well and emotionally safe’.

We purchased all our own gear and watched you tube tutorials – we skilled ourselves up to be the crew we didn’t have and couldn’t afford to have. Not to mention that we had two new born babies in tow needing to be breast fed as we traversed the country.

After collating over 100 hours of footage the next beast was editing it down to some semblance of a story and to make it an engaging piece of cinema. Jerusha spent 5 months in the edit suite to cull and begin to shape a framework. From 2 hours it slowly began to reveal itself before Jo, Jerusha and I locked ourselves away for an entire long weekend to write the final script that you see on screen today.

We navigated the patriarchy and misogyny at many turns and we were often called to out on our ‘big girl pants’ to negotiate the hefty business decisions that underpinned this 1.5 million dollar documentary and to keep it true to its integrity and vision.

We aren’t quite sure how we managed it in hindsight – but after 5 years of blood, sweat and tears here we are. We have just won our 24th international film award.

 

 

3 questions every pregnant mum should ask prior to setting up their birthing plan.

I’m not sure it’s about three questions every pregnant mum should ask. I think it’s more about understanding the importance of the rite of passage you are about to embark on.

Choose who you take your birthing wisdom and guidance from – surround yourself with the people that share their stories from a place of empowerment and embodiment.

Read books like Rhea Dempsey’s ‘Birth with Confidence’ and ‘Beyond the Birth Plan’,  Milli Hill’s ‘Birth like a Feminist’, Dr Rachel Reid’s ‘Reclaiming Childbirth as a rite of passage’. Subscribe to our Birth Time Hub for all the full length interviews – set yourself up to a highly educated and resourced woman around the topic of birthing so you can choose wisely when needed.

Choose your birth team consciously. Find your continuity of midwifery care team. Where possible have a midwife and a doula.

Have all the discussions with your midwife about what happens if you need to transfer and make sure you are comfortable with those scenarios too. Don’t leave any stone unturned.

Do the classes so that you understand what is going to happen to your body as you open magnificently to birth your baby. Don’t keep your head in the sand.

Then trust yourself, trust your body, trust your baby, trust your birth team. You got this!

 

What provision should they make for the fact that complications could happen?

Midwives are trained in the full scope of practice and are extremely skilled and educated in being able to traverse a myriad of situations. Midwives in New Zealand have wonderful collaborative arrangements in place should any complications arise. Your midwife can fill you in on all of this.

 

Have you noticed any striking differences between the Australian and New Zealand birthing systems?

Everyone we interviewed across the western developed world looks to New Zealand as having the GOLD standard of maternity care. In that – all women in New Zealand can access continuity of midwifery care. It is publicly funded. In Australia by comparison only 8% of women can access continuity of midwifery care. Yet, all the research indicates that continuity of midwifery care leads to better outcomes for mothers and babies. In Australia we have a very fragmented system that is mostly obstetric led.

I really want NZ women to know how lucky they are to have access to continuity of midwifery care and just how close they are to losing it if they aren’t careful. In the NZ tertiary hospitals the trauma rates and intervention statistics are now beginning to rise and mimic those that we are fighting so hard to change here in Australia as women in NZ are beginning to seek out different models of care.

We would love to help stop the burn out rates of NZ midwives (from having to take on too many women) and also ensure higher rates of retention in your midwifery profession. It is so important that NZ midwives and midwives globally be paid their worth. We want midwives to be able to practice autonomously with good collaborative arrangements in place when needed.

If NZ midwives could be paid more while holding onto your continuity of midwifery care model we could all just look to you and follow suit. NZ is already some 30 years ahead of us in regards to legislative change. Over in Australia we are still fighting just to get continuity of midwifery care acknowledged!

The world health organisation believes that the way to save the planet is to invest in midwives. If all women had a known midwife we could literally save the world.

 

A movie maker once said “Our voices are desperately needed to createchange”. Do you think your movie will create the changes you are promoting?

Interestingly our totem for Birth Time is a cicada. We were given this animal totem while filming aboriginal midwife Melanie Briggs on her country. She is a descendant from the Gumbaynggirr and Dharawal peoples and lives on Wandandian country within the Yuin nation. The interview went for about an hour and a half and was uninterrupted at the time. At the end of filming some people appeared who were not meant to be there and out of nowhere this cacophony of cicadas arose out of nowhere – to the point that we couldn’t have filmed. In that moment we were gifted the cicada as our Birth Time totem. “On our own we may not be that loud but together we can be deafening”.

We have very specifically partnered with Demand Film to help honour the grass roots nature of this film. We have also very intentionally made a movie for the cinema where people are coming out and gathering together and experiencing the film on the big screen. We are sharing collective joy, hope, tears and strength – the evocative and activating nature of seeing this film in this way is very activating for people.

Social Media can be a marvellous platform to help create social change. We are seeing women who have seen the film beginning to speak out loudly about their experiences and demand something better. #ItsTime – you can feel it – the women are rising!

We cannot wait to continue these very important conversations across New Zealand as Aaron and I travel around the country with representatives of the New Zealand College of Midwives to host these special event Q&A screenings of Birth Time: the documentary

 

What’s next on your creative calendar?  Any other documentaries or movies in the making?

Aaron and I have just optioned two true stories for our production company, Eagle Rose Productions, which we will be turning into feature films. I’m going to begin filming the first series of my own lifestyle show, ‘Kaftan Mama’ in the next few months and Aaron has just completed filming the first series of ‘Pieces of Her’ – the new Netflix Global series opposite Toni Collette.

 

For more information please visit www.birthtime.world

‘BIRTH TIME: the documentary’ – SPECIAL EVENT Q&A SCREENINGS NZ www.birthtime.world/screenings @BirthTimeWorld

 

Photography by Ian Butterworth from Louis & Co
Styling by Angela Giles from Imogen Styling
Hair and Make-up by Sophia Lee