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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

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!

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

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