Birth the Play

The Womens Health and Birth Center (WHBC) is embarking on an exciting new project with key members of the community. This project is the development of a new non-profit called "Better Beginnings". This non-profit will help pregnant and breastfeeding families to get services they need to have better births, be successful breast-feeding, and to adjust to parenthood. To kick off this new non-profit, we will be present an amazing play called "Birth the Play"which highlights the crisis in maternity care in America. The play is based on interviews with over 200 women who gave birth in America from 2002 to 2004. The play paints the story of how low risk, educated women are giving birth in America today. Moving between first person monologues,
dialog, and the voices these women heard on the day they gave birth, "Birth" confronts what the City Lights Theater Company calls "The naked truth about birth."
The play will be held September 23, 2007 for two performances at 2:00 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. . It will be performed in honor of Kitty Ernst, mother of the Birth Center movement in the United States and current president of the American College of Midwives. The play will be performed at the Glaser Center, 547 Mendocino Avenue, in Santa Rosa, There will be wine tasting, and hors de hordeves . Between performances there will also be a silent auction featuring birth art . A panel discussion will also follow the first performance. Proceeds will benefit ?Better Beginnings.? The tickets will be sold through the Birth Center and on the Birth Center website at http://womenshealthan...
The tickets cost $30.00 at the door, $25.00 pre-sale, and a special price for students and seniors at $15.00 a ticket. There will also be a ?Red Tent? event for women to share their own birth stories and feelings around birth following the play at a date to be announced. Make plans to attend and support this new non profit. Together we can make a difference in the lives of mothers and babies.

Director: Star Hergrenrather
Producer: Pamela Johnson

Sponsored By:
Rosanne Gephart CNM
Womens Health & Birth Center
583 Summerfield Road - Santa Rosa, CA 95405
707-539-1544

More about Better Beginnings...
The purpose of the organization follows:

We believe that the birth of a child is a pivotal event for women and for families. If we, as a society, can help in the transition from woman and man, to: parent, mother and father, we can help prevent some of the social, medical and emotional problems of the future. It
all starts with the pregnancy, prenatal care and birth.

What is needed is:

wanted and/or accepted pregnancies,
prenatal care with respect (social,ethnic,emotional),
faith and trust that, for most women, pregnancy and birth are normal, gentle birth in a supportive environment focused on the woman and baby,
midwifery for the masses, with proper back-up and support , a doulas for every woman,
support for breast-feeding , human milk for human babies, supportive home care for new mothers and fathers , mentors for positive early parenting (mothers teach mothering).