August 24, 2018

Karen H. Strange joins us in the Carolinas again! Karen is a Certified Professional Midwife and an American Academy of Pediatrics/Neonatal Resuscitation Program Instructor, and has been since 1992.

​

She is founder of the Integrative Resuscitation of the Newborn workshop, which includes the physiology of newborn transition, the evidence-based studies having to do with neonatal resuscitation, and the “when, why and how” to do neonatal resuscitation in a non-traumatizing way.

Karen incorporates the baby's perspective of birth and tools for healing when things do not go as planned.  Laced throughout the day is information and practice of grounding and presence for the skills used everyday and specifically how to use these tools in an emergency.

​

Karen has taught over 8,500 people worldwide. She has conducted over 900 hours of debriefs with birth professional regarding all aspects and experiences of resuscitation. 

August 25, 2018

Dan Haller, a financial advisor with Edward Jones, has a passion for educating and empowering individuals and families to develop financial literacy. Using an established process of goal-setting, debt reduction,  asset protection and maintaining a long-term investment philosophy, he partners with his clients to help keep them on track and navigate the financial challenges in their lives.

​

Dan and his wife, Jenny, have 5 children- 1 hospital born, 2 birth center born and 2 home born babies! 

August 25, 2018

Henci Goer, award-winning medical writer and internationally known speaker, is an acknowledged expert on evidence-based maternity care. Her first book, Obstetric Myths Versus Research Realities, was a valued resource for childbirth professionals. Its successor, Optimal Care in Childbirth: The Case for a Physiologic Approach, won the American College of Nurse-Midwives “Best Book of the Year” award. Goer has also written The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth, which gives pregnant women access to the research evidence, as well as consumer education pamphlets and articles for trade, consumer, and academic periodicals; and she guest posts on Lamaze International’s Science & Sensibility. Goer is founder, director, and faculty member of Childbirth U, a website offering narrated slide lectures at modest cost to help pregnant women make informed decisions and obtain optimal care for themselves and their babies.

August 25, 2018

Justine Clegg MS, LM, CPM is a Florida Licensed Midwife, Licensed Mental Health Counselor, and Certified Lactation Counselor with over 35 years experience in maternal-child healthcare, homebirth and education. She lives in Miami, FL and Asheville, NC with husband Jim Brinkman.

She is currently AME Board secretary, and most recently Academic Director for Commonsense Childbirth School of Midwifery in FL. As Midwives Association of Florida “founding mother” (1979) Justine helped write and pass Florida’s midwifery licensing law, start the South Florida School of Midwifery, and was Administrative Director in the 1980s. She established a 3 year midwifery degree program at Miami Dade Community College, served as Midwifery Chair and Professor 1993-2008, and earned an Endowed Chair (2003). As Council of Licensed Midwifery Chair from 1993-2001, she helped write Florida’s midwifery practice rules. She is on Miami-Dade County Fetal and Infant Mortality Review’s team since 1997, and FIMR Chair, 2004-2008.

A former Board member of MEAC and NACPM, she helped create NARM’s certification program in the 1990s. As Midwives Association of Florida CEU coordinator, she helps host MAF’s state conferences every two years. As a member of the North Carolina Midwives Alliance, Justine was MANA Region 3 conference CEU coordinator August 2011 in Cary, NC, and supports the initiative to legalize CPMs in North Carolina. She is the Midwives Alliance Documents Chair. Her 3 children and 6 grandchildren make her a “granny midwife.”

August 25, 2018

Meet Andie Nantz, Storyteller and Birthworker.

Her interest in the power of a story and all things births was sparked when she, at the age of 6, read that her beloved yet housebound cat would make kittens if only she had access to a male cat. Andie pushed open her bedroom window's screen and hasn't stopped pulling for the maternal instinct since.

What is an archetypal hero's journey?
How might an ancient story plant seeds of coping and understanding?
 

Using the Sumerian story of Inanna's Decent, dialogue and art we will learn how approaching birth as a rite of passage:
• Prepares women emotionally for birth
• Gives new meaning to past experiences
• Expands our maps for labor
• Normalizes the postpartum journey back to self
Give yourself the gift of a great story – food for thought (and a tiny bit of great chocolate...)
 

Andie has been serving growing families professionally since 2005, beginning as a homebirth apprentice and birth photographer. She is now an Advanced Birthing From Within Mentor and Doula living in Charlotte, NC. She has a degree in Vocal Performance and a deep passion for reducing and healing birth trauma. Andie is currently training in Birth Story Listening.

Learn more about her at journeybirth.com

August 26, 2018

Sakina O’Uhuru, CNM MS has been practicing the art of Midwifery for 21 years and has provided maternal child health care in underserved areas for 32 years. She held the position as Site Director/Director of Midwifery Services of Morris Heights Women’s Health & Birthing Pavilion during 1999-2004.   MHHC was the first clinic to offer out of hospital prenatal labor & delivery services in an underserved community in New York City.

​

Ms. O’Uhuru served as a Clinical Preceptor for SUNY Downstate Midwifery Program, Stony Brook, Columbia Nurse Midwifery Program, and New York University Midwifery Program. In 2002, she founded her private practice, Gentle Spirit Home Birth Midwifery Services where she offers comprehensive women’s health care services. Gentle Spirit Birth is a private practice independently owned and operated with two office locations in both New York and New Jersey.  She has attended well over 1000 out of hospital births.

​

In 2013, out of the need to address the staggering rates of maternal and infant mortality in the African American Community, Ms. O’Uhuru founded her non-profit, A Woman’s Way.

A Woman’s Way mission is aimed at providing community based educational forums that focus on reducing risk for African American women during pregnancy labor and birth.

​

Ms. O’Uhuru serves on the board of Beco Productions, Journey to Dance, and Soul Summit Music.

​

Publications: "Reality Bridges 2013 Volume 3.3 Can African American Women Conceptualize The Midwifery Model of Care As The Gold Standard of Prenatal Care For All Low Risk Women?" and in 2013 Ms. O’Uhuru published her first Memoir, "Journey To Birth: The Story of a Midwife’s Journey and A Reflection of The Heroic Women She Served Along the Way."

​

​

August 26, 2018

Belinda Lashea, CNM, DEM, is a midwife in a freestanding, midwife-owned, birth center in
Chapel Hill, NC. Belinda began her journey as a direct-entry midwife, learning the art of
midwifery through apprenticeship and self-led learning. When she made the decision to pursue her CNM credential, she relied heavily on the support of the midwifery community in North Carolina and found that she was equally welcomed and encouraged by both CPMs and CNMs. It is from this spirit of support and sisterhood that Belinda’s passion for unity amongst midwives was born.

She received her Bachelor’s in Nursing from UNC Chapel Hill, and her MSN in Nurse-Midwifery from ECU. Belinda is a board member of the NC Midwives Alliance and NCMERA, Chair of the Out of Hospital Committee of the NCACNM, and is Adjunct Faculty at the ECU College of Nursing where she teaches Out of Hospital and Community Birth as well as Herbs and Homeopathy for Midwives. She is passionately committed to honoring diversity and promoting unity amongst all types of midwives.

August 26, 2018

Christine Strothers is a Certified Professional Midwife at PureBirth Midwifery in Charlotte, North Carolina, a Registered Nurse (she studied nursing at Case Western Reserve University and Biology-Chemistry at Cleveland State University), and is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant. She graduated from Ancient Art Midwifery Institute in 2009 and is currently an AAMI staff member as Midwifery Skills Lab instructor and Apprenticeship Mentor. She is the director/ instructor of PureBirth Midwifery Studies as a regional partner with AAMI. 

From 1997- 2006, Christine was Patient Educator(CBE) and Staff Nurse(RN) at CMC-Pineville Maternity Center in Pineville, NC. After becoming a CPM, she was co-owner, partner midwife, educational director and clinical director at Carolina Community Maternity Center from 2009- 2015.

After seven years of working in South Carolina as a Licensed Midwife in birth center and home settings, she decided to move her practice to Charlotte in order to serve a wider range of clients, including VBAC and breech mothers. She currently serves as Treasurer of NCACPM, CPM representative to NCMERA and a co-founder of Carolina Birth Junkies.

August 26, 2018

Lori Gibson is a Certified Professional Midwife, Licensed Midwife and Midwifery Bridge Certificate Recipient. As owner of Moonlight Light Birth she attends clients and home births in South Carolina. Formerly, she worked at a busy freestanding birth center in the administrative side and the clinical side while apprenticing and, once licensed, was an associate midwife.

After receiving a BFA from UNC-Greensboro in 1998, among various other jobs, she worked as a freelance artist and photographer while raising her family with her husband, Stan. She has worked in the Rock Hill School District with the Family Literacy Program, has been an a Early Childhood Education teacher and has been a birth worker in some capacity since 1997, beginning as a doula for her youngest sister’s labor and birth. It was after the home birth of Lori’s third child in 2007 that she began actively pursuing out of hospital midwifery.

Lori has spoken publicly about home birth, midwifery and the path to becoming a midwife to hundreds of high school students as well as given presentations regarding a healthy pregnancy and birth at events throughout her area including visits with SC legislators to help educate the lawmakers in the areas of home birth and midwifery.

​

Lori graduated from Midwife-to-Be and was awarded the CPM credential in 2014 and since has been very active within the midwifery community. She is the current president of the SC chapter of NACPM, secretary of Palmetto Association of Licensed Midwives, and current member of Midwives Advisory Council with SC Department of Health and Environmental Control. She is a co-founder and organizer of Carolina Birth Junkies, an organization that strives to be a hub for midwifery education in the Carolinas.