Apocalypto -- a movie about natural water birth

With a central focus on the unpredictable nature of birth, Mel Gibson's Apocalypto does a great service to shed light on the need for a naturalization of birth.



Ancient Mayan Jaguar Paw (below) is taken prisoner by angry brutes for a nearby urban center leaving his pregnant wife (above) and son stuck in a deep hole with no way out. The wife and son try their best to get out, despite rocks and panthers falling on them.

And then it starts pouring rain, and the water collects in the hole. Just as they're about to drown, the mom has an amazing water birth, and Jaguar Paw makes it back just in time after sprinting wounded for 2 days straight.


More than the decline of an ancient civilization, or an obloquy against Jews, Apocalypto is a movie about natural childbirth. I don't quite understand why some people find the scene funny, as I think it's a powerful testament to human ability and a somber reminder of how the medicalization of birth is leading to an increase in potentially harmful interventions.

Marsden Wagner, former head of Maternal and Child Health for the European Office of the World Health Organisation (WHO), discusses the "safety" of technological interventions in the birth process:

As with other technological interventions used at the time of birth, those using active management of labor seem bent on playing down or hiding any risks and reassuring everyone that it is "safe". For example they claim, "On balance, active management of labor is safe for the fetus, notwithstanding any associated dystocia. It is also safe for the mother" (O'Herlihy 1993). First, it must be said that such statements reveal a failure to understand "safety". Since every medical procedure or technology has side effects and risks, no technology is 100 percent "safe". In every case, it is necessary to balance the chance of a good result (efficacy) with the chance of a bad result (risk). With any intervention under consideration, the chance of a good result or bad result can be scientifically determined. Instead of telling the woman that the intervention is "safe", she should always be told all information on the efficacy and risk. But the decision as to whether the good chance outweighs the bad chance should not be made by the doctor, who is taking no chances, but can only be made by the person taking the chance --- the woman. Therefore the doctor can never say that any procedure is "safe" but only tell the woman the chances and let her decide (Wagner 1994).

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Not to mention, it's a great action flick pitting man vs. man vs. nature vs. sun gods, and vs. Spaniards (eventually).

-dr-