About Us
Our first video, BIRTH DAY, was made for Boston’s Museum of Science in 1999. Before it was installed, we had been showing it privately to professors, friends and midwives in Cambridge, MA. They urged us to share it more broadly. So, we created a business, Sage Femme and made a website, HomeBirthVideos. We used Love Delivers as our motto.
In 2004, headquarters moved from Lexington, MA to California. We became a nonprofit and in 2011 we made our motto our name. We believe that love is the primary cause of pregnancy and that we can depend on it to grow and safely deliver the baby.
Our new motto is: Love Delivers: Always Has, Always Will.
Millions of people have seen our movies.
How do we know this?
BIRTH DAY, was finally installed in The Museum of Science, Boston where it screened 7 days a week for over 18 years. Film festivals in: Cadiz, Spain; Havana, Cuba; Ft. Lauderdale, FL, Philadelphia, PA; New York, NY; Northampton, MA; Tiburon, CA; Portland, Oregon, Bermuda, Costa Rica and Michigan also screened it. A fan in Jounieh, Lebanon pointed out that Birth Day had been illegally uploaded to YouTube three times. Before it was removed, we noticed that it got nearly two million hits.
Our videos are free to screen publicly. The Tau Hui Institute of Technology in Taiwan purchased the video HOMEBIRTH from Midwifery Today, one of our distributors. The Institute asked about the licensing fee and were told that it came with their purchase. They couldn’t believe it and asked Midwifery Today to have Love Delivers give written authorization for public screenings. Of course we did, with pleasure.
MISS MARGARET, about a Granny Midwife from Eutaw, Alabama, took over 10 years to produce. While it was in development, two professors contributed to its creation so it could be shown in their classes. Now it resides in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and in many libraries in Alabama thanks to homebirth activists in that state.
FIVE COUNTRIES, SIX BIRTHS, SEVEN BABIES is a compilation of home birth videos. It all started when a pregnant Shirley Tokheim and her artist husband, Brooks Anderson decided to spend the year in Provence with their family; he to paint and she to take care of the kids and give birth. Brooks set a camera on the window sill while he held Shirley as she labored and gave birth. The midwife and I attended. With open hearts they gave the footage to me and that was the real start of Love Delivers.
In 2007 I was fortunate to film two home births in Guatemala. It was a challenging time. Babies were being stolen. Mothers and midwives were being bribed in order to feed a demand for babies from couples in richer countries. Mothers held tight to their babies and went out of their way to avoid me and my camera. Finally, I gained the trust of two mothers who allowed me to film them giving birth.
Danielle Centeno asked me to film the home birth of her twins in 2008. When I got the call that she was in labor, I flew down to Southern California. Her father picked me up at the airport saying, you better have your camera on when we arrive. I did and the twins were born an hour later.
Luna’s waterbirth was filmed in Costa Rica and Inanna’s waterbirth was filmed in Bermuda. All beautiful, planned home births generously shared with a world hungry for a better way for babies to arrive.
Birth touches something so deep within a woman that few words can describe the feeling. At once there is intensity when the baby is pushing its way forward and then joy beyond belief when the baby is looking in your eyes and recognizing your voice and face for the first time. Birth the way Mother Nature designed it is, to the human sense, miraculous. And at that miraculous moment, things can shift. Mountains of preconceptions can be removed. As Deborah Allen said, “Birth is a moment of truth and it belongs in the hands of the mother.” We screened one of our first films, FOR TAMAYA, at the Fine Arts Museum in Boston. Afterwards I recognized a woman in the parking lot of the museum. She was pushing her newborn in a stroller. I knew that she wanted to be a doula based on the loving care she received from her doula in the hospital. When we spoke after the screening she said, “I used to think homebirth was the alternative. Now I realize that it is the STANDARD and everything else is alternative.” Her heart was touched and her thoughts shifted. She determined to have a homebirth with her second child and she did. Unlike his sibling, that baby was born safely into the loving arms of his mother, without drugs or any other interventions. It was a beautiful experience with just her husband, the midwife and a birthing pool.
What does the future hold? What do our children know about birth? Our next film is for and about two homebirthed kids, NAEEM & NIA. In Swahili Naeem means benevolent and Nia purpose.
You’ll be able to follow their progress and the development of the film in the Love Blog. They say only about 1% of births happen at home in the US. We know there would be fewer interventions, more satisfaction and lower costs if we increased that percentage. – Diana
Diana is a wife and mother of three homebirthed children. She began her journey into midwifery filming births along the way. In Texas, she met a very pregnant Naoli Vinaver, offered a camera to her and that was the beginning of BIRTH DAY, her first professionally produced film. A nonprofit organization was created after that and three other films followed. Her documentaries have been viewed by millions.
“I feel fortunate to have landed in the birth world. There is so much work to be done and so many good people doing it. It makes life a never ending blessing.”
Keniece Ford El, Director.
Keniece is the mother of two brilliant homebirthed teenagers. She has two masters and is working toward her PhD in Integrative Health.
She is also a practitioner of Chinese medicine, an acupuncturist and an advocate of women’s wellness.
Keniece is a singer, lyricist, composer and owner of a boutique music label.
Jenny Blyth is a homebirth mother of 3, grandmother of 4 and lives in the Australian bush. As a birth educator, birthworker and bodyworker, she has been supporting parents through natural birth for over 40 years. Her focus is body preparation, to realise potential in birth and reduce birth trauma. She also specialises in pelvic bodywork. Jenny regularly facilitates workshops in Australia & overseas. She is project co-ordinator for Lao Birthwork, teaching hands-on & emergency skills to health staff in remote areas. Jenny’s books are: The Down to Earth Birth Book, Birthwork and The Little Book of Pelvic Jiggling. Her films are: A World of Birthworkers, The Big Stretch and its Sequel.
Zoë chose to give birth to her second child at home, having birthed her first baby in a hospital setting. Both experiences convinced her of the deep knowledge and communication that exists between mother and baby and the utmost importance of allowing and empowering that connection to lead the way in birth. Zoë is a wife, a mother to her two now teenagers and two dogs, a birth and postpartum doula, and a working musician.
Josh Keppel, Camera
Josh is husband to Amy and dad to Lazlo, cameraman for NBC and all around good neighbor and fun person to know.
Godwin Jabangwe, Writer
Godwin Jabangwe is originally from Zimbabwe. He joined Love Delivers as an intern in 2009 working as a filmmaker and graphic designer.
In June 2017, Godwin graduated from UCLA with a masters in Screenwriting. He won many awards and scholarships. He now works for Netflix and is soon to see Tunga, his first musical animation
produced. Love Delivers is so proud and delighted to have Godwin’s
counsel and help with our films.
