Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington, Laila Ali, Melissa Joan Hart, Alyson Hannigan are among featured celebrities sharing personal birth stories as part of the series.Ricki Lake, Laila Ali, and Abby Epstein

Los Angeles, June 25, 2009--Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein, the documentarians behind the critically-acclaimed film The Business of Being Born and authors of Your Best Birth, will exclusively preview clips of their new film on MyBestBirth.com as a webisode series. Beginning on July 6th, 2009, the series will feature never-before-seen interviews from Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington Melissa Joan Hart, Alyson Hannigan, Laili Ali, Kellie Martin, Sarah Wayne Callies, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, Joely Fisher and others, discussing their personal birth experiences. Crawford’s birth story will begin the series, airing over four weeks and culminating with an online chat with Crawford on MyBestBirth.com. The other celebrity stories will immediately follow.

The new film, titled My Best Birth and scheduled for release this fall, is a new educational video that will further explore the American maternity care system, while providing women with more in-depth information about their childbirth options; information not covered in Lake and Epstein’s previous projects.

“After releasing The Business of Being Born and Your Best Birth, Abby and I started receiving numerous requests from parents and parents-to-be yearning for additional information, which lead to the launch of our social networking site, MyBestBirth.com, last month” said Lake. “Since launching the site, we’ve seen how powerful and healing the sharing of birth stories can be for many parents. This demand spearheaded the new film and gave us the idea to ask celebrities to share their very personal birth stories.”

The trailer for the webisode series can be viewed at MyBestBirth.com or http://www.youtube.com/mybestbirth.

About Ricki Lake:
Actress, producer, filmmaker and author Ricki Lake has reinvented herself at every stage of her 20 year career. Lake has gone from starring in the 80s classic Hairspray to hosting the long-running Ricki Lake talk show for 11 years—while continuing to star in feature films and appear in television projects. Lake has again evolved her career—this time to include birth advocate, documentarian and author with the recent releases of the critically-acclaimed film The Business of Being Born and pregnancy guide, Your Best Birth. Proving that her entertainment influence will always be multi-hyphenated, she presently hosts and executive produces the Vh1 hit series, Charm School with Ricki Lake.

About Abby Epstein:
Director and Producer Abby Epstein helmed the acclaimed documentary The Business of Being Born, executive produced by Ricki Lake. The success of the film inspired Abby and Ricki’s recent book, Your Best Birth. Abby made her film directing debut at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival with the documentary feature, Until the Violence Stops. On Broadway, Abby spent four years as the resident director of the musical RENT, overseeing the London premiere and two National Tours. She directed RENT in Mexico City, Barcelona and Madrid. Off Broadway, Abby directed over 100 celebrity actresses in The Vagina Monologues along with the National tour and premieres in Toronto and Mexico City.

Book Review: Your Best Birth: Know All Your Options, Discover the Natural Choices, and Take Back the Birth Experience (Grand Central Pub-Wellness Central/ May 2009) by Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein