Midwife of the Week

Midwife of the Week: Mary Carol Akers

Friends of Michigan Midwives

marycarolakersMary Carol Akers, CNM, PhD, practices in Elizabethtown, KY. In the course of her career she has midwifed more than 6,000 babies, while also serving as a Lamaze Certified Childbirth Educator and Certified Lactation Consultant. Akers was inducted as a Fellow of the American College of Nurse Midwives in 2013. In 2009 she began a quest to open Kentucky’s first free-standing birth center, The Visitation Birth and Family Wellness Center. During a Certificate of Need hearing, required by Kentucky law, three local hospitals objected to the opening of the center, claiming they already offered the same services that the center would provide. The hearing officer denied the Certificate of Need, but last month a Franklin County Circuit Court judge reversed the hearing officer’s decision on appeal. His grounds? The hospitals did not have the right to object, because the proposed birth center’s services were considerably different from those offered by hospitals. To read read more about the case, visit http://birthmonopoly.com/kentuckybirthcenters/.

This Midwife of the Week post was written by Valerie Meharg. It originated on FoMM’s Facebook page and is archived here on our website for your continued enjoyment!

Midwife of the Week: L. Samsarah Morgan

Friends of Michigan Midwives

lsamsarahmorganIn the 34 years that L. Samsarah Morgan has worked with expectant families in California, she has served as a birth and postpartum doula, life coach, counselor, interfaith minister, and most recently, an apprentice midwife. Her main place of business is the Nia Healing Center in Oakland. She is the director of Birth Professionals of the Bay Area, and also of the Oakland Better Birth Foundation. The Better Birth Foundation provides training for birth workers of color and offers grants to low-income families who wish to hire a midwife or doula. Morgan is the mother of five sons and two grandchildren. For more information on L. Samsarah Morgan and her work, visit http://www.niahealingcenter.org/education.html or https://oaklandbetterbirthfoundation.wordpress.com/.

 

This Midwife of the Week post was written by Valerie Meharg. It originated on FoMM’s Facebook page and is archived here on our website for your continued enjoyment!

Midwife of the Week: Lisa Uncles

Friends of Michigan Midwives

lisaunclesLisa B. Uncles, MSN, CNM graduated Magna Cum Laude from Frontier Nursing University and earned a Masters of Science from Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing. She worked at The Developing Families Center in Washington, DC, a city with some of the worst maternal and infant outcomes in the country. The Center collaborates with local nonprofits to provide quality care and social services to low income families. The trailer for Making Mothers, a film by Fanlight Productions that profiles Lisa and her work at the Center, can be viewed here. Ms. Uncles has also served as Clinical Director at the Family Childbirth and Children’s center at Mercy Hospital in Baltimore, and currently provides midwifery care at SPPS Metropolitan OB/GYN at Mercy.

This Midwife of the Week post was written by Valerie Meharg. It originated on FoMM’s Facebook page and is archived here on our website for your continued enjoyment!

Midwife of the Week: Debbie Pulley

Friends of Michigan Midwives

debbiepulleyDebbie Pulley grew up in Hong Kong and began volunteering in the pediatric wing at her local hospital at the age of thirteen. Three years later she witnessed her first birth and continued to work in Labor and Delivery. Debbie finished high school in the United States and became a medical assistant to a pediatrician. When her friends began asking her to attend their unassisted births, Debbie sought out a midwife to train her and began an apprenticeship in 1981. Debbie is now a CPM and a Tennessee Licensed Midwife. She practices in Georgia at Atlanta Birth Care. She is active in the Georgia Midwifery Association, serves on the Board of Directors at NARM, and has been the Legislative Committee Chair for MANA. Debbie has been married to her husband Don since 1973 and they have two children. To find out more about Debbie Pulley, visit gamidwife.com;  for more information on the Georgia Midwifery Association, visit gamidwifery.org.

This Midwife of the Week post was written by Valerie Meharg. It originated on FoMM’s Facebook page and is archived here on our website for your continued enjoyment!

Midwife of the Week: Carol Nelson

Friends of Michigan Midwives

carolnelsonCarol Nelson, LM, CPM, a midwife at The Farm, was an LPN when she started attending births in 1971. She became a Florida Licensed Midwife in 1982, and in 1995 also earned the CPM credential. Carol was a co-founder and instructor at the South Florida School of Midwifery. She wrote and lobbied for the Tennessee CPM law that was passed in 2000. The law established the Council of Certified Professional Midwifery of Tennessee, on which Carol sits. Currently Carol is the Midwifery Education and Advocacy Co-coordinator for MANA and also the Director of the Applications Department for NARM. Carol is also a devoted social and environmental activist. She serves on the Board of Directors of Plenty International, a non-profit organization started on The Farm to promote local food and water, energy, self sufficiency, and to provide disaster relief to communities in the US, Central America, and Africa. Carol is a founder of the Swan Conservation Trust, another nonprofit that protects and restores forests, waterways, and natural habitats in Tennessee. She is a mother to three daughters, all born at home. To learn more about Carol Nelson or her projects visit thefarmmidwives.org, http://swantrust.org/index.html, or http://plenty.org/.

This Midwife of the Week post was written by Valerie Meharg. It originated on FoMM’s Facebook page and is archived here on our website for your continued enjoyment!

Midwife of the Week: Gladys Milton

Friends of Michigan Midwives

gladysmiltonIn the late 1950s, Florida’s Walton County Health Department, hoping to offer midwifery care to low-income African-American residents, arranged for Gladys Milton to be trained in Alabama. After she received her midwife license in 1959, she attended her clients at home until 1976, when she opened Florida’s first birth center, now named Milton Memorial Birthing Center. By this time, most Grand midwives of the South had been forced out of practice. Those that remained provided care for poor, rural women, unacknowledged by local health departments. When middle-class women began to lobby for midwife licensure in the early 1980s, the state of Florida took notice of Gladys Milton and attempted to phase her out. The “home birth renaissance” enabled Gladys Milton to not only stay in practice, but to become the first traditional Grand midwife to be professionally licensed under the new law in 1984. Gladys Milton attended more than 3,000 births in her long career. Her legacy continues through her daughter, Maria Milton, continuing the family tradition as a midwife at Milton Memorial Birthing Center. Gladys passed away in 1999 at the age of 75. To learn more about Gladys Milton, visit http://miltonmemorialbirthingcenter.com/id6.html.

This Midwife of the Week post was written by Valerie Meharg. It originated on FoMM’s Facebook page and is archived here on our website for your continued enjoyment!

Midwife of the Week: Elizabeth Gilmore

Friends of Michigan Midwives

elizabethgilmoreAfter her childhood in Tepoztlan, Mexico, Elizabeth Gilmore moved to Martha’s Vineyard in 1971 to attend boarding school. When the time came to have children, Elizabeth was unable to find a home-birth friendly care provider. In an effort to inform the community about home-birth and midwifery, she and three other women formed the Martha’s Vineyard Education for Childbirth Association. She delved into research to prepare herself to deliver her second child at home, and soon began to attend her friends’ home births.
In 1977, Elizabeth and her family relocated to New Mexico. Very soon she found herself in the fight to keep direct-entry midwifery legal and to clearly define the role and scope of the modern midwife. She and Tish Demmin co-founded the New Mexico Midwives Association to organize this endeavor. Elizabeth opened the New Mexico Birthing Center in 1978 and worked there until her retirement in 2001. With her strong belief that “[w]e must remove barriers to midwifery education in order to improve outcomes for mothers and babies,” Elizabeth founded the National College of Midwifery in 1989. The school was later accredited by the Midwifery Education and Accreditation Council (MEAC). MEAC is yet another organization that Elizabeth helped co-found; she also served as its first president.
Elizabeth Gilmore passed away from brain cancer on August 7, 2011. To learn more about her life, visit this profile.

This Midwife of the Week post was written by Valerie Meharg. It originated on FoMM’s Facebook page and is archived here on our website for your continued enjoyment!

Midwife of the Week: Racha Tahani Lawler

Friends of Michigan Midwives
Photo by https://midwivesofcolor.wordpress.com/tag/racha-tahani-lawler/

Photo by midwivesofcolor.wordpress.com

African-American women are four times more likely to die in childbirth than are their white counterparts. Their babies likewise run twice the risk of death when compared to white babies. Licensed Traditional Midwife and CPM Racha Tahani Lawler of California is working to change that, with her mission to, “Grow our community, one baby at a time.” Racha, who comes from a family of midwives, began her career early. She moved to El Paso, TX to attend the MEAC accredited midwifery school, Maternidad La Luz, and subsequently passed her NARM exam in 2004. She moved back to California in 2007 and became a California Licensed Midwife the following year.

As the owner of The Community Birth Center in Los Angeles, Racha leads a team of midwives and students that provides prenatal and birth services, well woman and well child care, childbirth education, and breastfeeding education and support. Once monthly, they host “Community Free Friday,” where many of their services are provided free or at low cost.

In the midst of national outrage following the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, Racha received a heart-wrenching phone call from a laboring woman, as she relates in this moving and disquieting video.

To learn more about Racha Tahani Lawler, LM, CPM, visit lacommunitybirth.com.

This Midwife of the Week post was written by Valerie Meharg. It originated on FoMM’s Facebook page and is archived here on our website for your continued enjoyment!

Midwife of the Week: Abby J. Kinne

Friends of Michigan Midwives

abbykinneyMidwifery care was unavailable to Abby J. Kinne in Ohio. When it came time to birth her fourth and fifth children, she carried out extensive research in order to educate herself in unassisted home deliveries. These experiences prompted her to write Handbook for Homebirth. In 1977 Abby co-founded Center for Humane Options in Childbirth (CHOICE). She held many positions within the organization, including midwife, midwife coordinator, childbirth educator, treasurer, as well as member of the Board of Directors. She also developed CHOICE’s apprentice training program in 1977, followed ten years later by its monitrice training program. In 1984 Abby co-founded the Ohio Midwives Alliance, where she served as chairperson for the Legislative and Legalization Committee. Her work, Midwifery: An Informational and Educational Packet, was presented to Ohio’s Advisory Committee on Midwifery Care. In 1996 she was appointed to the state legislature’s Direct-Entry Midwifery Study Council to represent Ohio midwives as they sought legislation to recognize CPMs.

Not only did Abby contribute to the development of the North American Registry of Midwives (NARM) exam, she became the first North American CPM in 1994. She also served the Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA) as Research and Committee Chair, Membership Chairperson, Treasurer, and First Vice President. At age 65 she limited her workload to serving clients and training apprentices. In 2008 she and her husband moved into their retirement home, called “The Stork’s Nest,” on a large piece of property in Ohio. Three years later, Abby passed away peacefully.
To learn more about Abby J. Kinne, visit http://www.choicemidwives.org/?page_id=167.

This Midwife of the Week post was written by Valerie Meharg. It originated on FoMM’s Facebook page and is archived here on our website for your continued enjoyment!

Midwife of the Week: Linda McHale

Friends of Michigan Midwives

lindamchaleIn 1975, Linda McHale unexpectedly began her midwifery journey by catching her neighbor’s baby following a precipitous labor. After joining a labor support group run by two obstetric RNs, she completed an apprenticeship and began to practice as a Licensed Midwife in Texas. However, when she moved back to her home state of New Jersey, she found it was illegal for her to practice. McHale earned the CPM credential through the Experienced Midwife route in 1995 and then worked to make licensure available to MEAC-trained CPMs in New Jersey. She has served on the MANA board as the Northeast Representative and also as their fundraising chair. She now sits on MANA’s Advisory Council of Elders. For more information on Linda McHale, visit http://www.zoominfo.com/p/Linda-McHale/57733605.

This Midwife of the Week post was written by Valerie Meharg. It originated on FoMM’s Facebook page and is archived here on our website for your continued enjoyment!