It's already stirring controversy as well as criticism from the medical community, which feels maligned by Lake's advocacy of giving birth at home, a course chosen by just 1 percent of American women.

"This movie is not about hospitals versus home," Lake told TODAY's Ann Curry in New York. "I'm raising some really major questions about the medical system and whether it's really servicing mothers and babies as well as it could."

The United States, she said, has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the developed world.

According to "The CIA World Factbook," Singapore led the world with an infant mortality rate of 2.30 per 1,000 live births, followed by Sweden with a rate of 2.76 and Japan at 2.80. The United States' rate of 6.37 ranked just 37th, behind South Korea and Cuba and just ahead of Croatia. The highest mortality rate was in Angola, where the rate is 184.44 deaths for every 1,000 births.

"The fact that we have the second-worst infant mortality rate in the developed world is a statistic that I think people need to know about," she said. "We are the richest country in the world and the technology that we have is amazing today. Women in their 40s and even in their 50s can get pregnant today and carry children and deliver, babies are living at 23 weeks gestation. It's amazing the strides we’ve made. But in that process, we've lost normal birth."