Unseen

Childbirth is one of the most important moments in a woman’s life, but a doctor’s inappropriate approach can easily turn it into a traumatising event that leaves scars on body and soul. Some countries, such as Denmark, promote individualised care to best support the expectant mother’s wishes, but in Czechia and Slovakia their ideas are usually not taken into account. An approach that reduces the birthing mother to an almost mentally incompetent patient whose “problem” needs to be medically resolved still prevails instead of supporting natural childbirth methods. This often leads to needless interventions, such as the routine cutting of the perineum, no longer done in many countries. In her debut film, Slovak director Maia Martiniak gives space to several women from different countries whose lives were negatively affected by childbirth and uses their testimony to point out the overlooked fact that medical birthing processes take away one of a woman’s basic rights – to decide freely about her own body. (One World)