Wow. My jaw dropped when I saw Ricki Lake on the cover US Weekly. I thought it was Sarah Jessica Parker at first wearing a really bad bathing suit.

You know what’s really ironic — I found this picture whilst I was watching Ricki Lake re-runs on Living TV and eating a whole Domino’s pizza with extra cheese. I am so going to the gym right now.

Note by Celebitchy: Ricky Lake has lost over 125 pounds overall, and 24 pounds in the last two months. At the beginning of the month, she said she was a size six and that at 120 pounds she is “the thinnest I’ve ever been in my life.” She lost the weight by using a food delivery service called “Fresh Dining” and through exercise.

She also has a new documentary that was premiered at the Tribeca film festival about her quest to give birth naturally called “The Business of Being Born.” She is actually shown laboring and giving birth to her baby in the film, and she has no qualms about appearing nude on screen as it is for a worthy cause:

Lake and director Abby Epstein explore the intervention of modern medical practices in the birth process, which has led to alarming rates of drug-induced labor and cesarean sections performed in America. Several progressive childcare experts tout the traditions of midwifery and call for getting childbirth out of the hospital and back into the home.

Lake and Epstein, as well as several other brave women, open the doors of their pre-war Park Slope and Manhattan apartments to let cameras reveal the beauty and intimacy of a natural home birth.

When I first heard about the film I had my doubts. But the images of these women laboring in their bathtubs and on their sofas through waves of contractions are intense, at times hilarious, and often exhilarating.

I had my son in a birth center with no medical intervention or drugs after reading a book called “The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Better Birth.” Most of my labor was in a large tub. It is not for everyone, but I took classes to prepare and it was well worth it. Most of my friends have had hospital births, and they are often necessary. I was so happy to read about Ricki promoting natural childbirth by letting the camera film her. I wouldn’t even let my husband tape it when I gave birth so that’s very brave of her.

The movie is not for the squeamish, though. One reviewer says it’s straight out of a woman’s studies class with scenes of live childbirth that don’t leave much to the imagination.