Ricki Lake Gets Personal In New Book About Childbirth

Ricki Lake has been very candid about being sexually abused as a child and in her new book, “Your Best Birth,” she explains how giving birth can bring back the trauma of abuse.

Access Hollywood’s Maria Menounos sat down with the star who opened up about the issue in her new book.

“Chapter seven deals with sexual abuse… Why did you feel that was an important chapter to include in this book?” Maria asked.

“I’m not telling that story to sell books,” Ricki explained. “I’m telling that story because you can feel violated. I mean one in three women are sexually assaulted in some way, so those are a lot of women that are giving birth.”

Sexually abused around the age of six, Ricki told Maria that victims can be re-traumatized over their body’s “lack of control” during labor.

“If they are feeling, you know, like someone is not honoring their body and respecting their…privacy, their comfort level… The care providers need to be very gentle with women and particularly [with] women who have had some you know, really unsettling experiences.”

“You talk about people who have addressed sexual abuse [in your book]. Did you face those issues where you felt like your body wasn’t being honored?” Maria asked.

“I’m trying to remember whether I was conscious of it or whether it was something I thought about afterward. I think I’ve always been sort of modest about my body,” Ricki answered. “In a hospital when there’s a lot of residents learning from other doctors and they’re witnessing [many things]… In my personal opinion, for my body, I felt safer at home.”

So Ricki opted for a midwife to assist in the birth of her now 7-year-old son, Owen, which was featured in her 2008 documentary, “The Business of Being Born.”

But Ricki promises the book is chalk full of information too. Perhaps a little too much.

“I would never know that your partner or your husband is supposed to manipulate certain parts of your body,” Maria said.

“Yeah, yeah! Nipple stimulation helps you go into labor and having sex before if you’re trying to bring on labor [helps],” Ricki revealed. “There’s definitely things you kind of didn’t know.”