Welcome to the World

2012, Society  -   21 Comments
8.16
12345678910
Ratings: 8.16/10 from 51 users.

A lyrical, exhilarating and sometimes unsettling look at childbirth around the globe. Every year 130 million babies are born.

Their life chances are a lottery depending on where they are born. In Europe, six babies per 1000 will die before their first birthday.

In Africa, it's 82. In America, 1 in 3 will grow up to be obese; in Cambodia, a child is more likely to become malnourished than go to high school.

In Sierra Leone, one in eight mothers die in childbirth. Through the stories of mothers and babies around the world, we look at how poverty affects childbirth, childhood - and everything beyond.

According to the World Health Organization, 99% of women who die during pregnancy and childbirth are in the developing world.

Every minute and a half, a woman dies from pregnancy-related causes and just eight countries account for almost 50% of the world's maternal deaths every year.

Directed by: Brian Hill

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21 Comments / User Reviews

  1. Tern

    How about not shagging? The world is overpopulated, + is of a nature where it's irrational for anyone anywhere to want to bring kids into it

  2. Angie

    This taught me so much and has inspired me to look for charities that help women, we are strong and brave and many people don't have the 'luxuries' that I have;
    As in a home, food and an income.

  3. Kitty

    mment is awaiting moderation.
    Education IS the key. And I'm not talking higher education. It must start with young children being taught about the finite and fragile reality of the planet and how each of us affects it. Birth control and the choice of NOT TO reproduce, must to taught not enforced. The blame for the current world situation goes to religious endoctrnation, greedy capitalism and ill preforming education systems.

  4. Rick Garza

    Bernie Sanders has the great ideas on ending poverty and homelessness here in the United States. His concepts would work for many other countries as well. The wealthy of all nations must be heavily taxed and all businesses must be required to pay. With the workers earning more money there would be much more money being circulated in the perspective economies and communities which would create millions of more jobs. When the greedy millionaires and billionaires are hording the majority of the money this creates poverty because massive amounts of money isn't being distributed among the masses of workers. Massive amounts of birth control should be provided to the male populations of those too poor to adequately provide for a family. The women should also be provided birth control as well. There's absolutely no reason to give birth if one cannot provide for a child. It's not right nor morally responsible to bring a child into the world only to force it to suffer from hunger and disease. If there wasn't an excessive population explosion and the world's population was 60% less than what it is today, especially throughout countries where the populations are so huge such as India, China, Philippines, etc., poverty could be eliminated and living wage jobs could be created for all those willing to work. Those who are physically and mentally capable of working, but are too lazy to work and not willing to work should be denied any food assistance. If they don't work, they don't eat. If they believe it is better to commit crimes to earn money then when caught they should be imprisoned for an extensive length of time and made to work for their room and board while incarcerated. When they are released they should be provided a living wage job. Perhaps they would have learned after being imprisoned. If not then they must be permanently incarcerated. Poverty creates financial crimes and other unproductive ills that hurt societies. Poverty creates divorces, child abuse, spousal abuse, alcohol abuse, drug addiction and a host of other problems. If the over population problems of each nation, including the United States, were reduced substantially, and the wealthy were highly taxed as much as 70% and tax cuts and tax loopholes were eliminated nations could afford to create jobs that pay $30,000 or more for everybody who wants to work. Hunger and poverty would be a thing of the past.

  5. Rick Garza

    It is very ignorant and extremely selfish for the woman to wish to have many children in hopes that one of them may become rich and provide for her. The other children would all suffer with this idiotic goal for success. It would be much better if she had only one child which would make it easier to feed. It would be a lot more likely that this one child could find a way to get an education and more likely to succeed then perhaps contribute to helping her and her husband out.

  6. sadness

    two words: capitalist hell.

  7. Maria

    I couldn't believe it when the woman said "I wanna have as many kids as possible, maybe one of them would be somebody important one day and help us live better". If that isn't ignorance, I don't know what is.

    1. Godsclaws

      Yea sounded pretty selfish hey.

  8. Doris

    so many women have to suffer wile man have the placers ,

  9. Doris

    not everybody can effort birth control ,the don't have money to eat ,me to I like the name ant were the life, pleas let us now were we can find dose people. Pisey's ? mom have a big hart ,a reel mother,

  10. Destiny Greenfield

    I want to donate to pisey and his mom and sister. Do any of you know how I can find out their full names or some way to help them? I know I can find many others who need help too, but Pisey struck me in a way that I cannot explain. I would love to donate to them and be sure that he gets that education.

  11. octavio

    Two words, "birth control"

    1. Destiny Greenfield

      We are talking about people who are uneducated and severely poor. It's not so easy as birth control. Your part of the mindset of "their problem, not mine" that keeps these cycles going. If it was that easy, we wouldnt have a problem, would we?

  12. Mark Edwards

    While poverty is a tragedy in itself, the real tragedy is in the cowardly irresponsible men who father these children only to abandon them.

  13. Lastviewer

    Simply appalling.
    I feel like dropping everything here and go help at anything over there.
    In Cambodia for the least.
    I had a good life, worked for ~ 25 years in pure applied science in industry, and I know that it wont get better or worst while I may find a way to help.
    Just a comment to close: Why would this docu be the less viewed?
    I wonder... Must be the reason why there are 1.6MEG homeless children in the US? And I guess that this figure is only an"Average" that vary from one region to another.

  14. AntiTheist666

    Welcome to the World.

    This isn’t just about babies; it’s another excellent and hard hitting documentary in the Why Poverty series.

    If you had any doubts about watching this please put them to one side and just watch it, you won’t be disappointed; it’s full of pain, suffering, death and awful stats, like only 17% of women in Sierra Leone use contraception and that there are 1.6 million CHILDREN homeless in the USA.

    The stories of Starr, Pisey and Neang are deeply tragic and painful to watch but absolutely need to be seen and understood if we hope to reduce this terrible suffering. Every single one of us are where we are today because of a fluke of being born and we should not turn a blind eye to those who suffer just because we are well off.

    Amongst all this pain are some marvellous moments of childbirth and heart warming displays of love, care and compassion. The dedication of the Medicins Sans Frontieres staff in the face of this disaster is a fine example of the indomitable human spirit.

  15. bumpercrop

    Why aren't the basic rudimentary reproductive-education classes being
    taught in our public schools, appropriate in graduating age? Vist SIECUS.org
    to discover the reproduction/ed curriculum in your county. Contraception should be free and freely available, for all human beings.

  16. Elizabeth Wesley

    Such heartrending stories; they tear me apart. All I can say is "why"?

  17. David Ewer

    Essential and excruciating viewing.
    1.6 million kids are homeless in the US, twice as many women die in childbirth in Africa than the world average, yet we live in a rich world. How can the US spend >$800 billion on the military and let millions live without homes or hope?
    Why are there no comments? Is this film too heavy to watch, or are people scared to confront such massive issues?

    I expected more from the folk who visit this site...

    1. AntiTheist666

      Hi David

      I don’t know why this great doc has so few comments either? Ok some of it is tough to watch but looking away rarely helps the pangs of conscience nor solves anything.

  18. David Ewer

    "Whoever controls reproduction controls the future..." SHARON BROUGH