You know her as John Waters’ teen film star, a former talk show host, and a celebrity weight-watcher. Now meet the acclaimed executive producer. Ricki Lake’s newly released documentary, The Business of Being Born, shines a spotlight on the excesses of US obstetrics and is being likened to An Inconvenient Truth, earning her the moniker “The Al Gore of Home Birth.”

Lake is humbled by the comparison to her eco hero, even if the climate crisis and childbirth are seemingly unrelated. In her eyes, the state of maternity care in the US is also critical because the proportion of women giving birth by cesarean section is now 31 percent—a rise of 50 percent in the last ten years. So Lake is talking up what you might call the green alternative: home birth. Her film’s harrowing footage shows that there’s virtually no such thing as “natural birth” in most US hospitals. “I love that this issue is being talked about as an inconvenient truth,” she says from her Los Angeles home. “It’s that dire of a situation.”

Those already living green are a natural audience for the film, says Lake, who opted to give birth to her second son at home with a midwife. (Hers is one of several home births filmed in the documentary.) The experience has made her both healthier and more eco conscious, from the pounds she’s shed to the organic veggies she now buys. “I learned to love my body the day I gave birth at home in my bathtub,” she says.