Closing Premier Session: Ina May Gaskin

Common Sense, Childbirth, and the Future of Midwifery
Sunday, June 2, 2:00-3:00pm

Ina May Gaskin, MA, CPM, PhD (Hon.), is founder and director of the Farm Midwifery Center, located near Summertown, Tennessee. She is author of Spiritual Midwifery, now in its fourth edition, and her newest book, Birth Matters: A Midwife's Manifesta , was published in 2011. Ms. Gaskin was president of Midwives' Alliance of North America from 1996 to 2002.

In 1997, she received the ASPO/Lamaze Irwin Chabon Award and the Tennessee Perinatal Association Recognition Award. In 2003 she was chosen as Visiting Fellow of Morse College, Yale University. In 2009, she was conferred with the title of Honorary Doctor by the Faculty of Health and Human Sciences of Thames Valley University in London, England. In 2011, she was chosen as one of 4 recipients of the Right Livelihood Award (also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize), given in an award ceremony before the Swedish Parliament in Stockholm.

Ms. Gaskin has lectured widely to midwives and physicians throughout the world. Her promotion of a low-intervention but extremely effective method for dealing with one of the most-feared birth complications, shoulder dystocia, has resulted in that method being adopted by a growing number of practitioners. The Gaskin maneuver is the first obstetric procedure to be named for a midwife.