Film still, The Squatting Position Delivery, CPP Pesquisas, Curitiba/Brazil 1979

This is a wonderful short video of approximately 10 minutes that shows multiple real births in the squatting position. The film, which is dated to 1979 at locations in Brazil, is based on the research of Moysés Paciornik and Claudio Paciornik, and brings to mind some of the beautiful natural birth videos that the French doctor Max Ploquin created in the 1970s (see here).

The film, which shows the graphic elements of birth–babies crowning, umbilical cords, placentas, blood and fluids, etc. is helpful to other pregnant women who are wondering what birth really looks like. The squatting birth positions of all the mothers represented gives an idea of how squatting during birth can help the laboring mother, utilizing gravity to bring forth the crowning infant.

CPP Pesquisas, Curitiba/Brazil 1979
Edition Tércio Gabriel da Motta
Photography and Camera, Jorge dos Santos