Birth Story: Ina May Gaskin & The Farm Midwives

Directed by Sara Lamm, Mary Wigmore

Date

December 12, 2019

About Project

DIRECTOR

Sara Lamm, Mary Wigmore

COUNTRY

USA

RUNNING TIME

95 mins

YEAR

2012

LANGUAGE

English

ABOUT THE FILM

Birth Story celebrates Ina May Gaskin and her spirited friends, who began delivering each other’s babies in 1970, while on a caravan of hippie school buses headed to rural Tennessee. Forty years ago Ina May led the charge away from isolated hospital birthing rooms, where husbands were not allowed and mandatory forceps deliveries were the norm. Today, as nearly one third of all US babies are born via C-section, she fights to preserve her community’s hard-won knowledge. With incredible access to the midwives’ archival video collection, the film shows childbirth the way few people have seen it – unadorned, unabashed, and awe-inspiring.