Joanna Rudnick is young, beautiful and has a promising career in filmmaking – and a ticking time bomb inside her. She was 27 years old when she received the bad news: she tested positive for a mutation in the BRCA gene, a mutation that highly predisposes her to breast and ovarian cancer, just like many women in her family.

In high risk cases like this, prophylactic mastectomy and oophorectomy is recommended to pre-empt the disease, which is basically the removal of breasts and ovaries before cancer strikes. But Rudnick turned the camera on herself to answer the question “How much do you sacrifice to survive?” In her directorial debut In the Family “she takes us on a journey through the unpredictable world of predictive genetic testing.”

According to research studies, prophylactic mastectomy and oophorectomy substantially reduces the risk for getting breast and ovarian cancer although there is no 100% guarantee. But the preventive surgery comes with a high price, as Rudnick knows.

Is she going to give up her dreams of having her own children in order to survive?

Is she risking her life by holding on to her fertility?

Rudnick also looked into the business side of things – at the company that owns the patents to the BRCA genes. Yes, they are patented, believe it or not. For every BRCA test performed in the US, the company gets money. European researchers have been fighting against this control but unfortunately lost the battle in court last December 2008.

Finally, Rudnick also talked to other women facing the same dilemma as she.

Earlier this year, the report of the first BRCA-mutation free baby in the UK triggered mixed reactions and heated discussion. Looking at what Rudnick and others are going through now, I can imagine how grateful that baby girl would be to her parents someday.

A new documentary titled Orgasmic Birth made the rounds of worldwide film festivals in 2008 and now the concept is getting mainstream coverage in a report on ABC’s 20/20 news show. The same show also featured segments on breastfeeding and the trend of home births with little or no medical intervention.

In the 20/20 segment, one midwife reported that, in an informal, non-scientific survey, 21 percent of the women had orgasms during labor. Even taking into account that women using a midwife rather than a conventional obstetrician are more likely to have the type of birth that would encourage an orgasm, this number seems high.

Then again, it is called “childbirth’s best-kept secret.”

The film was produced by Debra Pascali-Bonaro, a childbirth expert, 26-year speaker in childbirth education, and a Lamaze-certified veteran in maternity care, as well as the mother of three sons. The film won the Audience Choice Award at the 2008 Motherbaby International Film Festival in Bermuda.

The film, available for sale now, chronicles the birth stories of 11 different women. Births include home births, water births, and all-natural, mid-wife assisted births in hospital-affiliated birthing centers. The film features commentary from renowned experts in the field of midwifery, obstetrics and natural childbirth, including Christiane Northrup, MD, Ina May Gaskin and Elizabeth Davis. In spite of the title, the film is not pornographic, but is explicit and intimate.

Orgasmic childbirth is not a new idea but the film is the first truly intimate exploration of the feat. In her book In Labor, author Barbara K. Rothman writes, “Birth has much in common with orgasm; the hormone oxytocin is released, there are uterine contractions, nipple erection, and under the best circumstances for birth, an orgasmic feeling.”

Every mother has experienced the euphoria after her child is born, the great feeling of accomplishment, the surge of hormones, an exhausted, exhilarated state. But it’s possible to achieve those emotions during the birthing process, as well.

The filmmaker says the natural childbirth methods used to achieve an orgasmic birth are statistically safer than the standard delivery methods involving drugs and that often result in emergency c-sections, practiced today in many parts of the world.

The film’s Web site publishes reader-submitted ecstatic or orgasmic childbirths, and each has something in common—the mother is permitted to labor in a relaxing, calm environment with the physical and emotional support she needs to allow her body to do what it is designed to do.
To me, an orgasmic childbirth is merely the ultimate experience of a natural, non-medical childbirth experience.

Many people, including women who have experienced a painful, rather than sensuous, natural childbirth may pooh-pooh the concept, while others classify it as incestuous or somehow “dirty.” But, Pascali-Bonaro asserts that childbirth is an integral part of a woman’s sexuality and sensuality. Additionally, she states that the quality of the birth experience “makes a profound difference on how the woman feels, how the family feels and, ultimately, how the baby feels.”

An orgasmic birth may not be for everyone. Some women may shy away from that level of intimacy or in some way, feel that it is dirty. But if you can take something that the media and millions of women view as “painful,” and turn it into the most pleasurable experience possible, why not strive for that?

More information

20/20 segment

If you are into photography, then this is something for you. As a human egg emerges from a woman’s ovary, it was captured on camera, thus making its debut on film.

The ovulation video was captured by surgeons at the catholic University of Louvain in Belgium during a hysterectomy operation on a 45-year old woman.

Ovulation took about 15 minutes, much slower than previously thought. Previous theories favored the explosive exit of an egg from the ovary. After release, the egg will travel down the fallopian tube to the uterus.

Perfect timing is of utmost importance in this endeavour since ovulation normally only occurs once a month. The doctors planned the filming to coincide on the day of the peak of the patient’s luteal hormone cycle. They were lucky to be successful in their first attempt.

The video can be seen in the New Scientist magazine while photos were published online in the journal Fertility and Sterility.