
A Million Cuts
India's Caesarean section rate has climbed far beyond what medical guidelines recommend, and this film investigates why. It follows the story through hospital wards, private maternity clinics, and interviews with mothers who describe being pushed toward surgical delivery without a clear medical need. Doctors and health researchers lay out the financial incentives built into India's private hospital system, where a C-section can be billed and scheduled in ways a vaginal birth cannot, and public health officials weigh in on what the trend is doing to maternal and infant health outcomes nationwide. The film treats the rise in surgical births as a symptom of a larger problem: a maternity care system where profit and convenience can outweigh patient welfare. Rural and urban cases sit side by side, showing how the pressure toward C-sections reaches women across income levels. It closes on the open question of what reform, if any, is reaching India's delivery rooms.