Come to the Midwifery Today conference in Blankenberge, Belgium, October 30-November, 2013

Order the Current Issue
Subscribe to our quarterly print magazine

Subscribe to our quarterly
print magazine

Beginning Midwives' Package

Student Midwives' Package

More Package Deals

Promote your birth-related product or service.
Advertise with Midwifery Today.
Click here to check out all the options.

Biographies

| A – D | E – K | L – R | S – Z |

	Vera Samarina Vera Samarina, MD, doctor gynecologist-physiologist, pediatrician, is president of the association of teachers in natural family planning. She is a teacher of methods of conception. She teaches couples natural harmony of matrimonial relationships. Vera organizes medical conferences for the Christian medics of Saint-Petersburg.
	Emilio Santos Leal Emilio Santos Leal is a gynecologist who has dedicated his life to change birth in Spain. He was formerly a physicist and a psychiatrist. As he started the training as a gynecologist, he used to accompany homebirths, at the beginning in the hand of his mentor, the experienced midwife Consuelo Ruiz. Nowadays he works in a hospital in Madrid with the aim to give women the possibility of having healthy births full of power, and with the motivation to start a unit for waterbirth in the close future. Emilio Santos Leal’s goal for international midwifery is organizing events in Spain with the aim to inform women and professionals about the best available ways to have birth. Emilio is a member of Asociación Nacer en Casa, an association of professionals who provide attendance to women in homebirth, waterbirth, and birth centers, as well as childbirth preparation. > More Information You may read Emilio Santos Leal’s full biography here: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfxgmmxk_41ch3gxkd4
	Tatyana Sargunas Tatyana Sargunas, midwife and waterbirth trainer, has been preparing couples for soft, natural childbirth for more than 20 years. She conducts training seminars in spiritual midwifery for professionals, and has developed her own methods for teaching couples how to birth without medical intervention. Tatyana has four children who were born at home, in the water without intervention. At this time, Tatyana continues to teach gentle birth and spiritual midwifery. Her center, AQUA, organizes an annual expedition to the Black Sea. > Publications She co-authored two films: The New World: Water and Birth and Birth into Being. > More Information Tatyana has hosted two international conferences, "Obstetrics Spirit." At the initiative of Tatyana in various cities of the former Soviet Union were established clubs Family and Parenting Centers, which promote a healthy lifestyle, natural, soft delivery and early development of children "in harmony with nature and man."
	Peggy Sawyer Peggy Sawyer lived in Ashland, Oregon, where she practiced homebirth midwifery care that included homeopathy from 1982 to 2003. She was the mother of five including her youngest, twin boys. She was the grandmother of two children whom she had the privilege of catching at home. On December 4, 2003, Peggy died of an aneurysm at age 50. She is survived by her dedicated husband, Willie, who hopes to carry on her work. > Memorial In Willie’s words (as told to Jonnie Dale) "Peggy touched our lives deeply. Of all the people I have known Peggy was the most able to see through the veils of illusion, she lived the truth to the tiniest detail—birth, death, life, education—she was impeccable in simply living the truth, humbly touching people’s lives. "She was the truth. "I am filled with love and gratitude and bliss and excitement. I feel her presence. I have connected with her spirit. I connect with her in everything all around. There is a knowingness, deep within. She fought for the healing of the planet and protection of people. In a higher, more powerful way, she is not confined by the limit of body, she is here for everybody, still doing the work, helping. "It is up to us to do our part on the physical plane. In a physical way, we’re still working together. "In spite of all the emotions, I’m feeling pure delight. I’ve also been initiated, I haven’t gone like Peggy, I have gone through initiation before, and now at an even higher vibration. "We’re all just gonna pull together and help one another, empowering each other. "The last few months in our quiet time together she would talk about something big coming up in her life, something really big, really good, not just in her life, but world wide, evolving, another initiation to higher consciousness. I was feeling it too. "We’re in a really amazing transition time, we have the power to do it. People are finding the will to do it. "I am setting up a foundation, to continue all the work, the behind the scenes, the full gamut, midwifery, healing, child rearing, education, nutrition, give all those things a nudge, whatever way is appropriate. "Peggy was beginning to e-mail about a year ago, to connect with people all over the world. "She spent the last couple of months working feverishly sowing seeds, coming into this most amazing power, she laid it all out, nurtured by others, that’s what she was working so hard to do. "We can encourage each of us to hook up more links. It’s not hard, it’s fun—going with the flow of the cosmic evolution is very enjoyable cuz you’re actually creating consciousness, enough to feel cosmic. Consciously creating it and you are a part of it, it can be fun. If you’re not making it fun, you’re not doing it right, like the giant puppets dancing, we’re all singing the same songs, one movement, total connection. "Peggy opened my heart all the way, growing with every passing month, every passing week, every passing year, she taught me to open all the way. "Open your heart up all the way to the person/s you are with, to the world in general. The future will be fun." > Articles Salt of the Earth
	Verena Schmid Verena Schmid has been a midwife for over 25 years. She has founded a center for natural and homebirth with continuity of care from conception until the first year of the baby; a midwifery magazine; and a school with the goal of teaching Italian midwives the true sense of the midwifery model of care and promoting a new birth culture. In 2000 Verena won the prestigious Astrid Limburg award for midwifery achievement and excellence. She teaches in hospitals all over Italy, in several European countries and in her school. She is the author of two books and an activist in political promotion of natural birth and midwifery. At the time she is working at a project for a birth center in Florence. > Publications Verena is the author of Linee guida per l’assistenza alparto fisiologico a domicilio e in casa maternità ("Guidelines for home delivery") (1997), and Il dolore del parto ("Labor Pain") (1998). She is working on a new book, The Essence of Birth, Being Born and Giving Birth.
	Hans Peter Schmitz Hans Peter Schmitz has practiced Shiatsu and alternative medicines since 1990. His homeopathic calling is based on a family tradition, as his grandfather was a homeopath. The diseases of his children made him turn away from conventional medical doctrines and brought him to homeopathy in 1988. After attending A.B. Adam’s lectures (Kebanyoran College of Traditional Akupuncture in Jakarta) he added Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). In 2001 Schmitz and his wife started "Orthoshi AG" for Homeopathic Training and has since been lecturing and holding seminars on the subject matter. Peter was born in 1956. He is married, with 10 children and four grandchildren. > Publications "Acupuncture for midwives and obstetricians, Part 1–3" "A Manual: The Homeopathic Medicine Chest" Peter also has had numerous articles published in professional magazines. > Contact Contact Peter at: Homepage: www.praxis-schmitz.info E-mail: hps@praxis-schmitz.info
	Holly Scholles Holly Scholles, MA, CPM, LDM, is the president of Birthingway College of Midwifery in Portland, Oregon. She has been a direct entry midwife since 1978. She has two children, both born at home, and has breastfed for a total of nine years. When not catching babies or teaching at Birthingway, she may be found tending her herb garden on her two-acre farmette where she lives with her family, two self-important cats and 22 spoiled-rotten chickens.
	Melisa Schuster Melisa Schuster is a psychotherapist in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She specializes in prenatal and postpartum depression, child guidance and parenting, and codependency and addictions.
	Jodi Selander Jodi Selander founded the website PlacentaBenefits.info and provides placenta encapsulation services to new mothers in southern Nevada. She is on the placentophagy research team at UNLV (University of Nevada, Las Vegas). She developed the Placenta Encapsulation Specialist Training Course for providers, and has written The Postpartum Survival Guide, a book to help couples navigate the first three months after their baby is born. She lives in Las Vegas with her three young daughters.
	Julia Seng Julia Seng is a certified nurse-midwife and Research Associate Professor at the University of Michigan Institute for Research on Women and Gender. She studies the effects of posttraumatic stress on childbearing. > Publications Julia is the co-author with Mickey Sperlich of Survivor Moms—Women’s Stories of Birthing, Mothering and Healing after Sexual Abuse from Motherbaby Press. WHY I WROTE THIS BOOK: When I was a new labor and delivery nurse, I observed women in distress during internal examinations and in labor. It seemed to me that they were having the kinds of reactions to the intrusive, sometimes painful touch that someone who had been raped might have. Nobody I worked with seemed comfortable discussing these women’s apparent struggles. I supposed that made sense because talking about rape is hard. Since I was not finding knowledgeable colleagues to inform me about what I was seeing and what I could do to help these laboring patients, I decided to read up on rape survivors. I read everything I could in the nursing literature written by Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners (SANEs) who are the forensic nurses who provide post-assault care and collect evidence. I read about what they called Rape Trauma Syndrome. The research on Rape Trauma Syndrome showed that many rape victims recovered within a few months of the assault. But, by implication, many also did not recover. I wondered what happened to them. I next learned that rape is a significant cause of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among women, along with other gender- and sexually-based forms of violence, such as intimate partner violence and childhood sexual abuse. PTSD affects both men and women and can occur in the aftermath of many types of traumatic experiences, from accidents to combat to torture. But it affects women at twice the rate of men. It also is chronic in about half of women who develop the disorder. A hallmark of PTSD is feeling like the trauma is happening all over again when something reminds or "triggers" the trauma survivor. I vaguely remembered learning about PTSD in my psych/mental health coursework. But nowhere had I learned that it had relevance for reproductive health nursing. It seemed to me that what I was seeing with patients could be posttraumatic stress reactions to aspects of labor or gynecologic examinations that reminded them of past sexual trauma. Eventually I found a few articles in journals for birth professionals that discussed case histories or discussed literature from the fields of psychology and social work that made linkages between childhood sexual abuse history and women’s stressful reactions during labor. At that time none explicitly named the reaction as PTSD. Along the way I also found some professional role models who helped me develop ideas about how to respond therapeutically. But we were adapting these responses out of basic nursing skills informed by more sophisticated psychotherapy concepts. At the time, there were no research articles describing how PTSD might affect women as they went through pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, and adapting to mothering. There was no evidence-base to guide gynecologic or maternity care practice. While I was in my master’s degree program to become a midwife, I realized that I enjoyed conducting research very much and that I had a strong desire to fill in some of the gaps on this topic with research findings. I decided to shift my career from practicing midwifery to being an "academic midwife." I wanted to study PTSD-affected women’s experiences of childbearing and learn if they had worse outcomes than women who were not affected by this disorder. So I completed a doctoral degree in Women’s Health and a postdoctoral fellowship in outcomes research. Just as I was finishing my schooling and starting my academic career, Mickey Sperlich asked me to work with her on this book. Eight years later, we are still collaborating, and I am constantly sustained, enriched, and blessed by her friendship. It is my hope that the data and analyses I contribute in the field of women’s health are informative to women and their maternity care providers. I hope, eventually, they lead to changes that improve both the personal experience and the outcomes of childbearing for survivor moms. Meanwhile, it has been my privilege to have the task of bringing to the Survivor Moms book what research information there is from the fields of psychology, social work, psychiatry, obstetrics, midwifery, and nursing that can guide clinicians now and let each survivor mom know that she—for sure—is not the only one.
	Imam Mikal Shabazz Imam Mikal Shabazz is director of the Oregon Islamic Chaplain Organization and served as resident Imam of The Muslim Community Center of Portland for over 23 years. In 2006 he traveled to Sierra Leone with a midwifery training and health education mission to help mobilize local support for a school for Yele village children. He currently works to raise funds for children in that village.
	Elizabeth Shadigian Elizabeth Shadigian, MD, is an obstetrician-gynecologist, consultant, educator and researcher specializing in the health, safety and well-being of women. Elizabeth received her medical degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and her bachelor of science in chemistry from Purdue University. She has been board-certified in obstetrics and gynecology since 1996 and is a fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Elizabeth has been on the faculty of the University of Michigan Medical School since 1994 and for 12 years provided clinical care to women at the U of M Health System. She is writing her first book and is founder and Matriarch of the Battered Women and Children’s Memorial Garden.
	Robyn Sheldon Robyn Sheldon is a midwife and natural birth consultant. She holds a deep respect for the significance of birth as a means of transformation, and for its impact on the newborn psyche. Robyn’s book The Mama Bamba Way, The Power and Pleasure of Natural Childbirth, was published by Findhorn Press in 2010.
	Tlalie Vered Shir Tlalie Vered Shir is a trained doula. She accompanies homebirths, mainly in water. She developed heartsong, a program that uses song/sound vibration with theta healing imagery, especially for woman, pregnancy and birth.
	Ekaterina Shlyakhova Ekaterina Shlyakhova is the director of the international school Birthlight in Russia and the former Soviet Union. She is a specialist in perinatal yoga, aqua-yoga, early swimming and baby-yoga. Ekaterina believes that in yoga one must begin from simple ideas. Ekaterina says, “If all people accept the philosophy of non-violence, respect, self-development and empathy, the world will be much better!”
	Penny Simkin Penny Simkin, PT, is a physical therapist who has specialized in childbirth education since 1968. She estimates she has prepared over 9,000 women, couples, and siblings for childbirth. She has assisted hundreds of women or couples through childbirth as a doula. She is the author of many books on birth for both parents and professionals. Through independent study and her work as a birth counselor, she has developed a counseling approach for pregnant survivors of sexual abuse. This work is described in the book, When Survivors Give Birth: Understanding and Healing the Effects of Early Sexual Abuse on the Childbearing Woman, which she co-authored with Phyllis Klaus. Today her practice consists of childbirth education, birth counseling, and labor support, combined with a busy schedule of conferences and workshops. She co-founded Doulas of North America and The Pacific Association for Labor Support. > Publications and Products Penny’s latest publication is the third edition of The Birth Partner: The Complete Guide to Childbirth for Dads, Doulas, and All Other Labor Companions. Other recent products for birth educators and doulas include a client handout called "The Road Map of Labor," a birth video titled "The 3Rs: Relaxation, Rhythm, and Ritual," and a Birth Sling—an aid to the dangle position for second stage labor. Currently, she serves on several boards of consultants and editorial boards, including the journal, Birth: Issues in Perinatal Care; the International Childbirth Education Association; and the Seattle Midwifery School. Penny and her husband, Peter, have four grown children and eight grandchildren. Penny has also written Labor Progress Handbook: Early Interventions to Prevent and Treat Dystocia, with Ruth Ancheta (2000), and Pregnancy, Childbirth and the Newborn, with Ann Keppler and Janet Whalley (2001). > Contact Visit Penny’s website: www.pennysimkin.com
	Cheryl L. Smith Cheryl K. Smith was the managing editor for Midwifery Today from 2005 to 2009. She wrote for and edited Midwifery Today magazine and and edited several books published by Motherbaby Press, including Placenta: The Gift of Life / Information on the role of the placenta in different cultures, and how to prepare and use it as medicine (2007), Survivor Moms: Women’s Stories of Birthing, Mothering and Healing after Sexual Abuse (2008), and The Power of Women (2009). She has also raised miniature dairy goats since 1998 and is the author of Goat Health Care (karmadillo Press, 2009) and Raising Goats for Dummies (Wiley, 2010).
	Maryl Smith Maryl Smith, CPM, LDM, has an active homebirth practice and has been catching babies since 1984. Over the years she has cared for women from over 18 different nations, worked in two free-standing birth centers, taught as adjunct staff at Birthingway College of Midwifery and served in multiple roles in the promotion of midwifery in the state of Oregon. Her passion is supporting trauma survivors during the perinatal experience. Maryl frequently travels the world with her pastor/musician husband working to preserve indigenous spiritual expression in music. Her other activities include adventures with her granddaughters, herb gardening, writing and being active in her local Native American community.
	Noemy Sotela Noemy Sotela is nursing supervisor in the public hospital of Upala, a small town in the northern Costa Rica. In adddition to her duties in the hospital, Noemy is dedicated to supporting traditional midwives working in remote rural communities of the region.
	Dõna Irene Sotelo Dõna Irene Sotelo is a traditional midwife (partera tradicional) who lives and works in the community of Juitepec, just outside the city of Cuernavaca, in the state of Morelos, Mexico. She is also a traditional healer (curandera), an herbalist, a bonesetter and a specialist in traditional forms of massage. She runs a full-time healing and midwifery practice from her home, which contains a birth center. She sees 10 to 15 clients a day and attends four to six births a month. She has attended thousands of births and is widely recognized as one of the most respected and honored traditional midwives in Morelos.
	Kara Spencer Kara Spencer, LMT, CD, CBE, is a craniosacral therapist, licensed massage therapist and birth and postpartum doula with a private practice in Eugene, Oregon. Further resources about craniosacral therapy for mothers and babies are available at Kara’s website at www.maiahealingarts.com. Kara is also a childbirth educator, doula trainer and healing arts educator. She is the founder of the Maia Institute of Co-Creative Healing at www.maiainstitute.org, which offers Co-Creative Birthing classes online and more. She also teaches Birth Arts International Doula workshops, www.birtharts.com.
	Mickey Sperlich Mickey Sperlich is a Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) with nearly 20 years experience helping women on the journey of pregnancy and birth. She currently coordinates a study on the effects of posttraumatic stress on childbearing at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Research on Women and Gender. Read Mickey’s Blog > Publications Mickey is the co-author with Julia Seng of Survivor Moms—Women’s Stories of Birthing, Mothering and Healing after Sexual Abuse from Motherbaby Press. WHY I WROTE THIS BOOK: While practicing full-time as a community-based midwife, I had the opportunity to work with many women who were survivors, either of childhood sexual trauma, rape, or both. The experience of being their midwife, and witnessing their challenges and triumphs encouraged me to learn more about the effects of trauma on the body, and on the experience of childbearing specifically. There were pivotal moments among my interactions with my clients that revealed to me how a history of abuse can impact childbearing and mothering. I will never forget early on in my practice being with a young woman who was fearfully facing her first pelvic exam. It took her an hour to be ready to undergo the exam. I remember the long waiting for her to be ready, with each passing moment feeling another measure of her entrenched terror, and at the same time her courage and determined spirit coming to the fore. I learned a lot from her about the importance of being patient and respectful of a woman’s boundaries. I also remember distinctly another client in advanced labor who, upon becoming fully dilated, expressed fear about pushing her baby out. She stated that she couldn’t push her baby out because her baby could also be abused. Try as I did to reassure her that it would be okay, it was her truth of that moment, and she ultimately elected a cesarean section. I was not aware of her history as a survivor of sexual abuse, as this was before we began asking clients about this, and so I had missed the opportunity to work with her on this level before she was at the point of giving birth. Learning about how memory is submerged and retrieved was facilitated for me by another client, while I was examining her cervix in labor. I was humbled by the face of my client momentarily panicking, believing that I was no longer her trusted midwife but rather the mother who had abused her as a child. She taught me the importance of being "in the moment" with a survivor; of thinking on one’s feet about how best to comfort and reassure her that the past is in the past and that we are in the present and that she was in control of her own body. I have witnessed women having a hard time with pelvic exams, birth, and breastfeeding. I have witnessed women "checking-out" when confronted with hard labor or pushing. I have been challenged by the interpersonal dynamics of relationship with some of my survivor clients. Just as I felt "called" to practice midwifery, I have felt "called" to shed light on issues that survivor moms face during the process of becoming a mother. That calling led me to begin the "Survivor Moms Speak Out" project. I developed a survey which asked basic questions about the ways in which survivors felt that their pregnancies, births, postpartum and mothering had been influenced by their history as survivors. The surveys were distributed at midwifery and birth-related conferences across the country, at doctors’ and midwives’ offices, and via a contact address on the web. 1136 surveys were circulated over a two year period, 207 surveys were returned, and from this number 81 women completed a narrative or contributed a poem for the book Survivor Moms: Women’s Stories of Birthing, Mothering, and Healing after Sexual Abuse. During the survey and narrative collection phase of the project, I was very fortunate to meet my friend and collaborator Julia Seng, Ph.D., CNM. We met the day I attended her formal defense of her dissertation study of the correlations between women with a diagnosis of PTSD and pregnancy complications, and she signed on right away as a collaborator to this project. Her scientific expertise, co-authorship and amazing friendship have been essential to the completion of this project. Having cared for survivors as midwives, we expected the narratives to focus on pregnancy and birth. Indeed, there are many accounts of how pregnancy and birth were affected, but overall the message of these stories is that abuse, and the reactions women have to abuse, affect the whole life of the mother, from thinking about having children all the way to being a grandmother, and that the effects are far-reaching and deeply felt. The women in these stories are all at different places on their healing journeys. Some of the narrators are just beginning to examine the impacts of abuse on their lives; some are deep in the struggle of recovery. Others have been in recovery for a long while, and feel largely healed from the effects of abuse. They share their experiences across the lifespan; from before motherhood, to pregnancy and birth, postpartum, mothering, and the ongoing journey of healing and surviving. It was not possible to print each of the narratives in their entirety. Instead, we excerpted the narratives and arranged them into chapters which follow the childbearing process and lifespan of a mother. We have included one or more narratives in its entirety at the start of each chapter, so that the reader can get a sense of the wholeness of the woman’s experience and voice, and to allow us to have a ‘springboard’ for discussing the issues raised within each chapter. We interweave the narratives excerpts with our clinical perspectives as midwives, and contributions from other healthcare professionals. When we knew of scientific data relevant to an aspect of pregnancy, birth, or postpartum that could augment the narratives, we have provided a very brief summary and a reference. By separating out the literature findings and helpful resources alongside the text, we hoped to make such information easy to access for both caregivers seeking to enrich their knowledge of survivor issues and survivors seeking validation of the impact of abuse on women’s lives. If you are a survivor reading this book, we encourage you to check in with yourself on a regular basis, and limit your exposure if you become triggered by any aspect of the stories or text. This is probably not a book to read through in one sitting! If you are a health care provider or support person, you will benefit from hearing first-hand from survivors about the far-reaching impacts of abuse, looking to the state of the science, and reading clinical perspectives. I am grateful to the women I have cared for as a midwife, and I am grateful to the women who have taken their time to share their story for this book project. These are women daring themselves to open their eyes: to be present to their pain; to admit their own failings but not let these transgressions paralyze their forward motion; to educate themselves; to foster courage to heal and to love; to let that love bring forth children; and to see that those children are raised with THEIR eyes opened and awakened. For when we are awake to our humanity, we are better positioned to protect ourselves and our loved ones. We are better equipped to continue our healing. We are able to look around and see that WE ARE NOT ALONE. We are better able to initiate lasting change, and, ultimately, we open ourselves more to the possibility of love and forgiveness for ourselves and others. I hope you the reader will be as deeply touched and inspired as I have been by their lives. May all of our eyes be opened.
	Eneyda Spradlin-Ramos Eneyda Spradlin-Ramos, BA in Human Resources, Licensed Massage Therapist, was born in Managua, Nicaragua. She became interested in birth when she was nine, after observing a midwife resolve a prolonged second stage by simply having the mother blow into a bottle three times. Eneyda has been involved in childbirth, breastfeeding and homeschooling since 1982 and has attended homebirths since 1990.
	Nati Steverlynck Nati Steverlynck is a Certified Professional Midwife by the North American Registry of Midwives. She has done intensive clinical practice at the hospital, birth center and home setting and she is co-founder of Acompañando Mamás al Nacimiento (AMAN). Together with Ansu Coto, a doula and massage therapist, they offer a childbirth class in hypnobirthing. Nati is also a member of With Woman (www.womenwithwomen.org), an organization that supports woman-centered maternity care in underserved populations around the world. She has a career in Arts and Ceramics and birth shows frequently in her art work.
	Elaine Stillerman Elaine Stillerman, LMT, has been a New York State licensed massage therapist since 1978. She began her pioneering work in prenatal massage, labor support and postpartum recovery massage in 1980. She is the developer and instructor of the professional certification workshop "MotherMassage: Massage during Pregnancy" which she began teaching in 1990 and which is currently taught at massage schools, spas and resorts across the country. > Publications Elaine is the author of Mother Massage: A Handbook for Relieving the Discomforts of Pregnancy (Dell, 1992), The Encyclopedia of Bodywork: From Acupressure to Zone Therapy (Facts on File, 1996), Prenatal Massage: A Textbook of Pregnancy, Labor, and Postpartum Bodywork (Mosby, 2007) and the soon-to-be published Modalities for massage and bodywork (Mosby, 2008).
	Sudy Storm Sudy Storm, co-founder and Director of the International School of Traditional Midwifery, has been a practicing midwife in southern Oregon since 1997. She has made two trips to Senegal to provide midwifery services. > Contact Sudy Storm can be contacted through e-mail at: sudy@globalmidwives.org.
	Christiana Strickler Christiana Strickler is James Strickler’s oldest daughter. She is an experienced midwife in spite of her youth. She has a busy homebirth practice in Central Pennsylvania.
	James Strickler James Strickler, fondly known as PapaMidwife and husband of Fern, participated in the birthings of their ten home-born children. He served as a school administrator for 20 years and has now returned to his roots farming. James served as president of Pennsylvania-based SaveHomeBirth, promoting freedom of choice in matters of birth. When the Pennsylvania Board of Medicine recently tried to shut down a local midwife, he filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Amish.
	Ampusan Symonette Ampusan Symonette is a midwife in the Bahamas.
	Jan Tritten Jan Tritten is the founder and editor-in-chief of Midwifery Today magazine and a midwife who was in active practice from 1977–1989. She became a midwife in 1977 after the powerful homebirth of one of her daughters. Her mission is to make loving midwifery care the norm for birthing women and their babies throughout the world. Meet Jan at our conferences around the world! [ PHOTO BY ANDREA NOLL ] > Editorials Click here to read some of Jan’s Midwifery Today editorials. > Curriculum Vitae 1947 Born in Los Angeles, California. 1965 Graduated from Placer High School in Auburn, California. 1966 Trained for one year as a psychiatric technician. Courses included basic nursing, pharmacology, microbiology, anatomy and physiology, psychology. 1966–1971 Worked at DeWitt State Hospital in Auburn, California as a psychiatric technician. 1968 Graduated from Sierra College with an Associate of Arts degree. 1970 Graduated with honors from Sacramento State College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Social Science. 1971 Earned Lifetime California teaching credential with fifth-year program from Sacramento State College. 1972 First daughter born in a hospital. It changed my life forever. It was an unsatisfactory birth experience, but I had a wonderful postpartum experience with 2-1/2 years of breastfeeding. 1976 Second daughter born. She was born at home with a doctor who talked me into a homebirth. The difference between the two births sent me on a path to do something to help women have positive birth experiences. 1976 Began training as a midwife. Because I was raising young children and running a business, and because there were no CNM schools in my area, becoming a CNM was not within my reach. 1977 Began attending births with the Birth Co-op in Eugene while organizing courses in our community taught by CNMs, physicians, nutritionists, etc. 1978 Began a midwifery practice, New Life Care, with a partner, Chris Howard, and apprentice Monika Dunsmore. 1979 Son born at home. 1980 Did a one-year program with Marion Toepke McLean, CNM. Four of us completed the program, which was modeled after CNM curriculum at that time. She took a year off from her practice to teach us and to go to our births with us. 1982 First group of midwives certified by the Oregon Midwives Council. Our board was composed of CNMs and physicians. 1986 Slowed down practice and started Midwifery Today magazine.
	Kim Trout Kim Kovach Trout, PhD, CNM, has been caring for mothers and babies since 1980. She is currently on the faculty of Villanova University where she teaches maternal-newborn nursing. Kim is particularly interested in pursuing research regarding the normal physiology of birth.
	Gail Tully Gail Tully is a homebirth midwife (CPM) and a birth doula trainer in Minneapolis, Minnesota USA. She presents her Spinning Babies Workshops nationally, which include Belly Mapping and Resolving Shoulder Dystocia. She is a doula trainer (DONA approved) and the founder of The Childbirth Collective doula group.
	Rebecca Turecky Rebecca Turecky, CNM, ND, is a homebirth midwife, raised in the US, but now a Costa Rican dual citizen with licensure as an Enfermera Obstetrica. With her background in Women’s Studies and alternative healing, she worked in Europe and Africa promoting women’s health, before she found her natural paradise in Costa Rica. Since 1991 she has been involved in efforts to humanize childbirth in the country through her work with mothers and babies, traditional midwives, government agencies and international organizations. She co-founded Asociacion Mamasol.
	Marie Tyndall Marie Tyndall is a midwife who has worked in diverse settings—from hospitals in Canada and England to rural communities in Iraq and Nicaragua. Originally from Canada, she now resides in Costa Rica where she works with her midwife partner Rebecca Turecky offering holistic homebirth and waterbirth services for intimate and gentle birth. Marie has worked for many years to support traditional midwives throughout Central America. You can find out more about childbirth in Costa Rica though her website www.mamasol.com. > Contact Visit the Mamasol website: www.mamasol.com or contact Marie by e-mail: marie@mamasol.com
	Laura Uplinger Laura Uplinger is an international proponent and educator in the field of conscious conception, pregnancy and birth. Fluent in four languages, she bridges several cultures traveling between Europe and the Americas as a featured speaker for doulas, midwives and obstetricians. In Rio de Janeiro, she has counseled pregnant women in favelas, mansions and maternity wards. Scriptwriter of an award-winning video, "A Gift for the Unborn Children," she works in close collaboration with the Association for Prenatal & Perinatal Psychology and Health, www.birthpsychology.com.
	Kerstin Uvnäs-Moberg Kerstin Uvnäs-Moberg has been a professor in physiology at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences since 1996. She is the author of The Oxytocin Factor, Tapping the Hormone of Calm, Love and Healing (Da Capo Press, Perseus Press, 2004) and has published over 400 articles.
	Thea van Tuyl Thea van Tuyl is a prenatal teacher in the Netherlands (her course is called "Samen Bevallen"). For nearly 20 years she was also childbirth educator trainer. Since 2000 she has been a member of European Network of Childbirth Associations (ENCA www.enca-nederland.nl), a European network that works for improvement of the care of mother and baby. She is secretary of the Dutch department of ENCA. She took part in the start of the Education for Doulas in Utrecht and became doula trainer. During her visits to the Midwifery Today conferences in Europe she learned the use of the rebozo from Naolí Vinaver and Angelina Martinez Miranda from Mexico. Together with Mirjam de Keijzer she started to organize workshops about rebozo massage in 2007. Thea and Mirjam wrote the workbook The Rebozo Technique Unfolded with involvement from Naolí Vinaver who inspired their writing of the book. Thea is married, has two daughters and lives in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands. www.theavantuyl.nl (Dutch)
	Fran Ventre Fran Ventre, CNM, MPH, began her career in Maryland as a childbirth educator in 1973, then became a licensed homebirth lay midwife in 1975. She was founder of HOME (Home Oriented Maternity Experience) and editor of its newsletter from 1973–1979. She subsequently graduated from the Georgetown University Nurse-Midwifery Program in 1978 and received a Masters of Public Health from Boston University in 1990. > More Fran has been active in ACNM and was also one of the founding mothers of Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA) in 1982. She directed the first licensed birth center in Massachusetts from 1980–1984. She has practiced in community hospitals, tertiary care teaching hospitals and now is starting a new position as midwife director setting up the first out-of-hospital birth center in Brooklyn, New York. She has precepted many nurse-midwifery students during her career.
	Naolí Vinaver Naolí Vinaver is a Mexican midwife who combines traditional birth practices with a profound interest in and respect for the physiology of natural birth. She has been attending both waterbirths and births in traditional styles and positions since 1990. Naolí has enjoyed three pregnancies and homebirths of her own in the company of her family. She is in the process of writing and illustrating a couple of children’s books about life, pregnancy and birth, while continuing her homebirth practice in both rural and urban Veracruz State, Mexico. [ PHOTO BY JENNIFER ROSENBERG ] > Workshops The Rebozo— A transcription of the rebozo workshop given by Doña Irene Sotelo and Naolí Vinaver
	Ann von Staffeldt Ann von Staffeldt is the mother of four children with her husband, Alex. She has been working with a special device called Vega Test, combined with a homeopathic method called Homotoxikology for the past 13 years. She continues her education every year to stay current with what is happening in the science of energy medicine.
	Marsden Wagner Marsden Wagner, MD, is a perinatologist and perinatal epidemiologist from California. He was director of Women’s and Children’s Health in the World Health Organization for 15 years. He raised four children as a single father. After many years as an outspoken supporter of midwifery, Marsden has retired from the field and is no longer available for interviews. His books, Born in the USA, Creating Your Birth Plan, and Pursuing the Birth Machine, are invaluable for anyone involved in birth. > Articles Cytotec Induction and Off-Label Use Technology in Birth: First Do No Harm What Every Midwife Should Know about ACOG and VBAC Midwives and Cytotec: A True Story Misoprostol (Cytotec) for Labor Induction: A Cautionary Tale Misoprostol: More on the dangers of Cytotec Ultrasound: More Harm Than Good?
	Nancy Wainer Nancy Wainer, CPM, is an internationally known childbirth writer and speaker who coined the term VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean—pronounced "vee-back"), now used all over the world. Her landmark book, SILENT KNIFE: Cesarean Prevention and Vaginal Birth after Cesarean (1983), won critical acclaim. It was chosen as the best book in the field of Health and Medicine by the American Library Association in 1983 and was called "The bible of cesarean prevention" by The Wall Street Journal. Her book OPEN SEASON: A Survival Guide for Natural Childbirth and VBAC in the 90s (1991) was touted by Informed Birth and Parenting as "the only book that tells the truth about childbirth in the United States (It fairly sizzles in your hands…)." She is currently working on her third book, titled BIRTHQUAKE: A Childbirth Book for Strong Women and Women Who Want to Be Strong. > Speaking Ms. Wainer is a consultant to many birthing organizations across the country, has spoken on numerous television and radio programs and has been interviewed by newspapers all over the United States and Canada. She has written articles and has spoken out against America’s growing reliance on technology and surgery at birth. Her talks and topics include: Cesarean Prevention and VBAC; Creating a Positive Birth Experience; Birth without Bloodshed; Grieving and Healing after a Disappointing, Upsetting or Traumatic Birth Experience; Teaching More Effective Childbirth Classes; What Is Natural Childbirth, Really?; Fear and Compliance in the Birthplace; and The Language of Birth. Her lectures and workshops have been called informative, entertaining, inspiring, poignant, humorous, alive, empowering, irreverent, dynamic, and "definitely unforgettable!" Ms. Wainer has been the keynote speaker at numerous conferences and has been asked to be the keynote speaker for the 2004 Australian Home Birth Midwifery Conference. She teaches natural childbirth, homebirth, VBAC and sibling classes. She is certified in HypnoBirthing and teaches HypnoBirthing classes as well. Ms. Wainer is also a frequent featured speaker for Midwifery Today Conferences. > More Ms.Wainer has a homebirth practice. She studied midwifery at The Birth Center in Dearborn, Michigan, at Casa de Nacimiento in El Paso, Texas, and with the International School of Midwifery in Kingston, Jamaica. She then completed a two-year apprenticeship in Boston. She taught midwifery students for the Massachusetts Basic and Advanced Midwifery Courses and was a preceptor for Hands of Light Midwifery Training. She trains student/apprentice midwives. She is a certified doula and was a La Leche League Leader for many years. She is the director of Birth Day, which provides midwifery care, childbirth education and labor support for pregnant women. Ms. Wainer has three grown children and lives in the Boston area.
	Karen Webster Karen Webster, CPM, LM, has had a passion for birth since after the homebirth of her 4th baby in 1979, when she began attending births and apprenticing with her midwife. Karen has been an avid birth activist, and served on the MANA Board for six years, and is now a member of the FAM Board. She has always had apprentices and fervently believes in the saying "Each one teach one" and the importance of preserving the apprenticeship route to becoming a midwife. She has served as a preceptor for the National College of Midwifery and Birthwise Midwifery School. She has been a CPM since 1995, and has also served as a Qualified Evaluator (QE) for NARM since 1995. She has worked on legislation in Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland and Pennsylvania. Her goal is to see midwives as the primary caregivers for all healthy pregnant women in this country—in her lifetime! Karen is married, the mother of eight children and Nana to five grandchildren.
	Sara Wickham Sara Wickham, PhD, is an Independent Midwifery Lecturer and Consultant based in the UK. Having practised as a midwife in the UK and US, she now focuses on teaching, speaking, writing and research as well as independent practise. Sara’s books include the Midwifery: Best Practice series, Anti-D in Midwifery and Sacred Cycles: The Spiral of Women’s Well-Being. She is a contributing editor for Midwifery Today magazine. > Articles 26 Ways to Change Birth Globally Homebirth: What Are the Issues? > Contact Sara can be reached at withwomanuk@yahoo.co.uk
	Leslie Wolff Leslie Wolff is a midwife in a hospital in Haifa, Israel. She sees herself as a change agent, and, together with other midwives, has been promoting natural childbirth within the walls of the hospital. She is also a childbirth educator and an active participant in a women’s movement in Israel, promoting freedom of choice at birth. Leslie’s dream is to work in Israel’s first birth center (yet to be established). She is now studying Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Guided Imagery, in hopes of further helping women during their childbirthing year. > More Leslie is the mother of four grown children. Although American-born, she came to Israel as a teenager and has lived since then with her family in Kibbutz Hazorea (a socialistic society). Leslie would love to have a visit from any midwife who is visiting Israel from any country. > Contact Contact Leslie at wolf_ul@hazorea.org.il
	Elizabeth Yoder Elizabeth Yoder is an experienced Amish midwife practicing in Pennsylvania. She believes it is important to figure out what the mother’s rhythm is during labor.
	Mary Zwart Mary Zwart is an independent midwife from The Netherlands. She graduated from the Amsterdam Midwifery School in 1969. She received her nursing training at the Leiden Academic Hospital. After traveling, she practiced privately from 1973 to 1996. Then she became involved in changes in Eastern Europe and Russia. Since 2000 she has participated in a movement to humanize the birth process in Brazil. She is the founder of the European Perinatal School, as well as a member of the European Network of Consumers and Childbirth Educators and the Coalition for Improving Materity Services. Mary enjoys teaching midwifery internationally and recently began practicing again. She has one daughter, and she collects all kinds of midwifery objects.