The Orlando Baby International Film Festival will feature films that offer healthy, amazing images of pregnancy, child birth and early infancy. Films will be supported with panel discussions featuring local experts from the Orlando Birthing Community. There will be networking opportunities and time to connect with friends. If you want to be part of a community that supports families and babies the Orlando Baby International Film Festival is the place to be!

WHEN: October 2 9am-5pm & October 3, 2009 9am-5pm

WHERE: Plaza Theater, 425 N. Bumby Ave. Orlando, FL.

"Beautiful, inspiring, educational films provide a forum for an event to create change in your community. Our film festival is designed to plant roots of on-going dialogue and the potential for transformation in your home town. It opens the door to network and communicate with other professionals, inspire and provide choices for expectant families, listen to their hopes and dreams and make money to fuel your organization to the next level." - Official BABY! International Film Festival Website

More information on the Orlando festival is also available at CommonsenseChilbirth.org. 

Beautiful! Images of Health, Joy and Vitality in Pregnancy and Birth.

This lovely book is an 8.5 x 11 sized, black and white photo book. Very inspirational and a great gift idea! A portion of each book sold goes to support Commonsense Childbirth Inc. - Jennie's non-profit organization.

Commonsense Childbirth has a mission to ensure access to timely maternity healthcare particularly for minority, low-income, uninsured, and under-insured women and to provide practical, social, educational and emotional support, resources and referrals as a means to improving the chances for a positive pregnancy outcome.

Excerpt from Beautiful!

"There is a way - The JJ Way®. I present these images to you so the women can tell their own stories, without words. See if you can see what I see; that indeed in America today, every woman does want a healthy baby and every woman absolutely CAN have one." Jennie Joseph

Endorsements and reviews

"Jennie Joseph's book Beautiful! is rich in words and images that will inspire women who live in a culture which floods them with negative messages about their ability to bring a healthy baby into the world. Many of the triumphant, gorgeous women depicted in this book began their pregnancies in trouble. Their photographs and stories bear witness to the transformative power of pregnancy and birth, coupled with tender, skilled midwifery care such as that provided by Ms. Joseph and her staff."

Ina May Gaskin MA, CPM
Midwife, Author
Founder of The Farm Midwifery Center, Tennessee
Books: Spiritual Midwifery;, Babies, Breastfeeding and Bonding;, Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth

Order your copy today!

Jennie Joseph discusses 'Surprise Pregnancy' with iParenting.com Network. Read the article in full.

Jennie talks 'Pre-baby blues' with Pregnancy Today. Read the article in full.

Neonatal units? Routine Cesarean sections? Hectic Labor and Delivery floors? When did birth become an illness? Long before institutionalized deliveries, babies were delivered at home, women supported women and entire families were considered the central focus for the beginning of each new life. Currently two-thirds of the world’s babies are delivered by midwives. Not so in the USA, where approximately only 8 – 10 % are delivered that way. The midwifery model of care incorporates all aspects of care - physical, spiritual, emotional and social - and as such has been shown to increase satisfaction, reduce interventions and improve perinatal outcomes. Midwives can provide care to low-risk women in hospitals, birthing centers or at home. The serious lack of birthing choices for American women coupled with outcomes sometimes worse than other third-world countries prompted Jennie Joseph to create a system that increases and improves access to the kind of care that women and families say they want. The JJ Way™, named after Jennie Joseph, is a model that can be easily emulated and duplicated, that delivers optimal maternity care and that focuses on bonding, education, empowerment and respect. Joseph has incorporated her JJ Way™ methods into her midwifery practice over the last ten years, and has seen such outstanding birth outcomes that a research study¹ is currently underway to discover ‘the secret’ of her success.

Jennie Joseph was born and raised in the UK when her parents emigrated from Barbados in the 1950’s. "I knew I was called to be a midwife from the age of sixteen, and I also knew I was going to make a difference in women’s lives", she says. Licensed in 1981 and having practiced in London hospitals (where midwifery care is the gold standard) for years before coming to Florida in 1989 Joseph has the garnered the experience needed to support her unique perspective. In 1998 she formed Commonsense Childbirth Inc., a federal non-profit corporation to provide midwifery services to uninsured and underinsured women. As part of her mission to bring the opportunity of a healthy baby to all women, Jennie, has had to expand her birthing facilities in Winter Garden to support her growing practice. As with every other area of healthcare, Central Florida is struggling to accommodate the prenatal and delivery needs of a booming region. The Birth Place stands ready to serve any and all women who have a need. For more information call 407 656 6938 or go to www.thebirthplace.org

Jennie Joseph will be speaking at the Northwest AHEC Conference in North carolina on October 27th and 28th.

"The purpose of this two-day conference is to present best practices,
promising new interventions, community engagement models, and policy
initiatives to improve equity in healthy birth outcomes through
enhancing preconception and interconception health of women."

For more information please visit the Northwest AHEC website.