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Cordelia S. Hanna-Cheruiyot, BA, CCE, CBA,  Pasadena, California

I was so empowered by the midwife-attended births of my two children (born in 1989 and 1991), that I found my life’s calling in the field of maternity care. I am a health educator with a specialty in maternal and child health with a passion for improving the lives of women and adolescents. My mission is to facilitate positive childbirth experiences for women and to improve infant and maternal health. I became a Certified Childbirth Educator (CCE) and a Certified Birth Assistant (CBA) and for nearly two decades, I have worked to increase awareness of the midwifery model of care and improve access to midwifery and doula care for California’s citizens. As an activist I worked to ratify the National Organization for Women’s resolution to expand the definition of reproductive freedom to include choices in childbirth – including midwifery care and out of hospital birth.

Karen Brody - Playwright, Mother, Birth Activist

In the weeks after I had my first son, Jacob, in 1999 I knew I’d be a birth activist. I had a powerful birth experience at home with three midwives and my husband surrounding me as I gave birth to my son. But as the weeks unfolded after the birth so did my emotions and extreme challenges of breastfeeding a baby that would not latch on. What I experienced throughout my pregnancy, and especially in those intense weeks after the birth of Jacob, was a model of care where I was always put at the center. I felt like a royal diva getting calls and visits from my midwives every day to see how I was doing. I knew right then that this was the type of care I wanted every woman to have. And I knew from my many visits to the playground with my children after that most mothers not only weren’t getting this type of care – they didn’t know it exists! I wrote my play Birth and founded BOLD because I thought it was important to use the arts to tell the truth about childbirth in America. There were many statistics available about women and childbirth, but not stories. Storytelling is so powerful, nonthreatening, and rich with meaning.  My intention has always been to allow the telling of mothers birth stories help women who have had traumatic births heal from their experiences and as a society to move on to a model of care during childbirth that fully supports women – that believes birth is normal and women’s bodies rock when it comes to giving birth. Today BOLD Organizers all around the world perform my play to raise awareness and money for mother-friendly childbirth and they gather women under BOLD Red Tents to tell their birth stories. I’m in awe of the communities who have been a part of BOLD and can’t wait to meet more BOLD women and men who feel the time is right to create childbirth choices that work for women. www.boldaction.org

Susanna Snyder, Maternity Home for Homeless Pregnant Women     

Resident Program Coordinator, Tallahassee, Florida 

I became pregnant at the age of seventeen. After visiting abortion clinics, reviewing young mother stories and considering every option, I decided on adoption and then become actively involved in my pregnancy in a way that I hadn't with anything else in my life.   After my labor was over, I was left with the feeling that I could do anything and do it well. I adored this world of empowered women taking control of their birth experiences. I went to college and soon realized I would be following in the footsteps of Robbie Davis-Floyd and I will be attending grad school for anthropology.  In the mean time, I jumped at the offer to work at the Maternity Home for homeless pregnant women and I now spend my days helping our residents find jobs and gain more permanent housing, trying to build confidence and foster hope.  I am dedicated to spending the rest of my life working toward childbirth re-education in America and around the world.

Tamra Larter - Mother, Doula, Better Birth Activist, New Jersey

Half way through my second pregnancy, the Pennsylvania birth center I had been going to for prenatal care informed me that my insurance only covered birth centers in New Jersey.  Since there were no birth centers in New Jersey I sought coverage for homebirth midwifery care. My HMO also denied me coverage of my homebirth because it was  deemed "medically unnecessary" and based on my choice.  With New Jersey's cesarean rate of over 37% and hospitals near me rising as high as 50%, I knew I did not want chance an unnecessary surgery.  Just two months following the amazing birth of my daughter at home (filmed for Orgasmic Birth), two women, friends and co-workers died of complications following cesareans at the facility that was meant to be my emergency back-up. Following these tragedies I helped co-coordinate a rally in front of the hospital and in our state capital to bring awareness to the rising cesarean rate and to request legislative sponsorship for a New Jersey Maternity Information Act. This act would make all intervention rates of maternity care providers easily accessible giving women the power to make truly informed decisions about where and with whom they deliver.  We received successful media coverage, and we are now working hard to accomplish legislative groundwork.  They are ready to hear from us!

Ashlee Miller, Doula, Tallahassee, Florida

The rebellious nature of adolescence led me to drop out of high school only a semester from graduation and I was soon surprised by a positive pregnancy test.  I found out that my life paralleled that of my closest friend Susanna (see Susanna’s story) who handed me a book on The Bradley Method. When I chose midwives, I found a new strength within myself and I birthed in water with the adoptive family present. Suddenly it seemed that helping women experience birth as I had was my purpose. I went for a Bachelor’s in Women’s Studies, I attended the doula training, and I had the amazing opportunity to live and work with Suzanne Arms. I work as a family support worker and I devote my time to sharing information and supporting women as they parent from pregnancy to childhood.   My hope is to advocate for women more specifically during pregnancy and childbirth by offering direct services.

Susan Hodges, Athens, Georgia

The incredible experience of giving birth myself, without drugs or other interventions, made me want to let other women know what I had learned.  When midwifery was being challenged in our community I really became fired up and I joined a protest.  We got press coverage, helped raise money, and we started a local birth organization.  When I attended an event where midwife Ina May Gaskin challenged us to write "one letter a week" to a newspaper or legislator I realized I could actually do that.  Within a few years I helped start Citizens for Midwifery, a national consumer-based organization to promote the Midwives Model of Care, and I am still very active.  Because I know that women and babies are still being harmed as a result of medical practices and interventions that are not based on evidence, I feel compelled to keep working for positive change. www.cfmidwifery.org

Jessica-Wind Abolafia, BA, Perinatal Birth & Labor LMT, Naples, FL 

I was first introduced to Debra Pascalli-Bonaro as one of her students in a DOULA certification class.  I was so inspired by Debra’s deep commitment to birth and maternity education and activism that when an opportunity arose with Orgasmic Birth I knew immediately that I wanted to participate.  My interest in Women’s Health began at an early age as the daughter of truly innovative and feminist parents who believed in informed choices and early education regarding body and health.  I solidified my decision to pursue my degree in Women’s Health after reading Robbie Davis-Floyd’s “Birth as an American Right of Passage” and received my BA in Women’s Studies at Union College.  I currently practice perinatal and birth and labor massage and look forward to completing my DOULA certification.

Elan McAllister, Doula, Birth Activist, New York, NY   

Unlike most activists and practitioners in this field, I have not birthed a child myself.  My passion for midwifery and birth activism was not inspired by a transcendent or traumatic personal birth experience.  It was sparked by a random encounter with a book, Elizabeth Davis’ “Heart and Hands.”  I remember sitting on the floor of the book store and reading it cover to cover then taking it home and reading it again.  Something woke up in me that day, spoke magic words and pointed me to this work.  I changed my major to Women’s Studies and became a birth doula.  My feminist studies taught me to challenge oppressive social structures and my experiences as a doula told me that the hospital would be a fine place to start!  I became an activist out of necessity, I simply could no longer be a silent witness to the ill treatment of women.  I co-founded Choices in Childbirth in 2004.  We publish The [New York, Philadelphia and National] Guide to a Healthy Birth and work very hard to provide the public with information about women’s rights and options in maternity care.  www.choicesinchildbirth.org

Lauren E. Williams, Denver, Colorado                                                                             

I have been a personal trainer for 4 years and early on knew I wanted to work with women throughout their pregnancy and into motherhood.  To deepen my knowledge about women’s bodies in pregnancy and childbirth I attended a doula training and began attending births.   It is my belief that women are as strong as we empower them to be, whether in the gym, in childbirth or in motherhood.  My goal is to create an environment wherein women are encouraged and educated, helping them feel and enjoy the freedom of their choice.  With these ambitions in mind, my business partner and I are creating Belly Bliss, a pre and postnatal yoga and fitness studio with parenting and childbirth classes.  Our goal is to offer women a place to find the answers they need and to discover the tools available to them free of judgment, politics or protocols. www.bellybliss.org

Rae Davies, BSH, CD(DONA), LCCE, IBCLC, Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida 

The birth of my first baby in 1968 became a segment in the groundbreaking film Childbirth for the Joy of It.  It wasn’t the film but the powerful impact of natural childbirth that launched a passion that is still deep within me.  I became the first “certified” Bradley instructor, attended hospital births, assisted at homebirths, counseled on breastfeeding, and became a doula and doula trainer. When the Mother-Friendly Childbirth Initiative (MFCI) was written, I knew that I wanted to be involved in making this a national agenda.  In 1997 I became the first Executive Director for the Coalition for Improving Maternity Services, during that time the MFCI became an international agenda and the International MotherBaby Childbirth Initiative was born.  As an Orgasmic Birth Team volunteer I work with people that make a difference, and Debra Pascali-Bonaro has created one of the most powerful messages that we have today in Orgasmic Birth - thank you Debra!