In The Works

Sage Femme, born in Massachusetts, USA and raised in California, is committed to finding, producing and distributing the broadest selection of natural birth videos available. Why? Because many people have forgotten or have never seen what a truly natural birth looks like. Cesarean section rates are high and climbing, use of drugs is pervasive, and negative images of birth are frightening. Sage Femme’s Home Birth Series was created to show what natural birth really looks like and remind us how empowering and magical it can be. Trusting in nature’s design saves mothers and babies from harmful interventions, drugs and trips to the ICU.

Vol 1 "Birth Basics" – The object of this video, which is still on the drawing boards, is to show a baby’s development inside the womb culminating in an exuberant home birth.

Vol 2 "Birth Day" – This video is a true celebration of love in the family of midwife Naoli Vinaver Lopez. Naoli graciously invites us to be present at the birth of her third child and daughter as she narrates with wisdom and joy. Birth Day was in 7 US film festivals and is presently installed in The Museum of Science, Boston. To purchase click here

Vol 3 "Home Birth" is a three disc set beginning with "The Spirit, The Science and The Mother." On the first disc, Drs. Wagner, Tgettis and Duhart, together with the families of Victoria Wright and Laura Jurczyk, show why home birth is so safe and satisfying. Disc 2 is titled: "Evidence Based Childbirth." In this disc, Dr. Robbie Davis-Floyd’s research as a medical anthropologist is combined with home birth images and birth stories from Sherry Payne, RN, Paula Allen, RN, Joanne Horton and Jean Snyder. "Woman Am I" is simply women giving birth to music. It is almost narration free. It shows different cultures, different women and different approaches to the same event.

Vol 4 "Miss Margaret" is a documentary about Grand Midwife, Margaret Charles Smith of Eutaw, Alabama. At the time she practiced, Jim Crow laws mandated separate but equal. But the only hospital to serve African Americans was over a hundred miles away. Miss Margaret, as she was affectionately called, delivered over 3,500 babies in homes between 1949 and 1981 without ever losing a mother. ‘They’ll know what they’ve got to do,’ she said. ‘If you know how to talk to them. Give ‘em kind words and love. That beats it all.’

The Granny Midwives were outlawed by the state in 1976. Funded by Medicaid, private contractors like HealthSouth stepped in to provide rural health care. Today, the founder of HealthSouth is in jail along with a former governor of Alabama for defrauding the Federal Government of over 4 billion dollars. Meanwhile, the vast wisdom of the grannies is fading and women in Alabama can no longer choose to give birth at home.

Viewers write:

“Sage Femme is saving babies, mothers and billions of dollars.”
Uva Meiner, Costa Rica.

“With luck, some day these videos will be required viewing for medical students and obstetricians too.”
Kimberly Schmidt, Canada

“When I show your videos to my birth students and Doula clients, magic happens – suddenly, all the pregnant mothers see that birth can be a blissful, positive event.”
Beth Curtis, USA