NFR Series: George Stoney's 'All My Babes'

This film on effective midwife training represented a breakthrough in candor at the time it was made. Centering on Miss Mary, a dedicated midwife in Albany, Georgia, the film opens with a meeting in which the town's midwives are chastised for the recent death of a baby and prompted to review the fundamentals of their work. It then follows two parallel stories, one of an experienced and confident expectant mother and the other of a young woman who comes perilously close to losing her child out of ignorance. Stoney juxtaposes scenes in a home that is dirty and unprepared with one that is properly organized for childbirth and postnatal care. Miss Mary's gentle narration carries the action and adds a reassuring tone. An actual birth provides the film's dramatic climax.

[All My Babies] might be utilized as an example of directed cultural change, in which we ask ourselves the question of how change is perpetuated, and what devices may be utilized in producing it…

— Nancie L. Gonzalez, American Anthropologist