Womb to World — Innate Behaviours

October 2008

Please click here for details of the Womb to World conference to be held Saturday 11 October 2008, at Imperial College. The biographies of the speakers are shown below.

Ina May Gaskin, MA, CPM

Ina May Gaskin, MA, CPM, is founder and director of the Farm Midwifery Center, located near Summertown, Tennessee. Founded in 1971, by 1996, the Farm Midwifery Center had handled more than 2200 births, with remarkably good outcomes. Ms. Gaskin herself has attended more than 1200 births. She is author of Spiritual Midwifery, now in its fourth edition. For twenty-two years she published Birth Gazette, a quarterly covering health care, childbirth and midwifery issues. Her new book, Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth was released 4 March 2003 by Bantam/Dell, a division of Random House. She has lectured all over the world at midwifery conferences and at medical schools, both to students and to faculty. She 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.

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 obstetrical procedure to be named for a midwife. Her statistics for breech deliveries and her teaching video on the subject have helped to spark a reappraisal of the policy of automatically performing cesarean section for all breech babies. As the occurrence of vaginal breech births has declined over the last 25 years, the knowledge and skill required for such births have come close to extinction.

Ms. Gaskin’s center is noted for its low rates of intervention, morbidity and mortality despite the inclusion of many vaginally delivered breeches, twin and grand multiparas. Their statistics were published in “The Safety of Home Birth: The Farm Study,” authored by A. Mark Durand, American Journal of Public Health, March, 1992, Vol. 82, 450-452. She was featured in Salon magazine’s feature “Brilliant Careers” in the June 1, 1999 edition.

Suzanne Colson, RM PhD
Dr Suzanne Colson is a midwife with 35 years experience supporting breastfeeding mothers in both hospital and community settings. She is an honorary member and founding mother/leader of La Leche League France. Suzanne is currently a senior lecturer/researcher at Canterbury Christ Church University. Results of her award winning PhD, the first study to describe a range of optimal maternal breastfeeding positions releasing innate behaviours, are in press. Biological Nurturing, the new breastfeeding approach studied is the focus of a practice development project aiming to increase breastfeeding rates at the hospital in East Kent where breastfeeding rates are the lowest in the county.

Please browse our website to view list of publications.

Christina M. Smillie, MD, FAAP, FABM

Raised on the US west coast, Dr. Smillie received both undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of California. Her pediatric residency took her to Connecticut, and for the past three decades she has lived on the US eastern seaboard. Boarded in pediatrics since 1983, Dr. Smillie left primary care in 1996 to found Breastfeeding Resources in Stratford, Connecticut, a private medical practice limited to the specialty of breastfeeding medicine.

Dr. Smillie has been a member of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine since its inception, and was awarded Fellowship in 2002. She currently serves on the Academy’s board of directors. She also serves as an advisor to the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Breastfeeding, and to the Health Advisory Council to the Professional Advisory Council of La Leche League International.  

Dr Jane Hawdon

Dr Hawdon is one of 7 consultants who run the neonatal (newborn) service at UCLH. UCLH is the perinatal centre for the North Central London perinatal network, which means that the smallest and most vulnerable babies are delivered and cared for at UCLH. Because of expertise in the UCLH fetal medicine unit and our close links with GOSH we also look after mothers and babies from further afield than North Central London. Our own multidisciplinary team shares with local professionals the follow up of babies who need continuing care as outpatients, and we have expertise in neurodevelopment, chronic lung disease of prematurty, and infant feeding.

Dr Hawdon is the clinical lead for the North Central London Perinatal Network, helping to coordinate the care of highest risk women and babies. She is the South of England representative on the executive committee of the British Association of Perinatal Medicine.

Dr Hawdon was appointed in 2001 to the role of divisional clinical director for women’s health, providing clinical leadership for the gynaecology, breast, maternity and neonatal services and ensuring we engage fully with external agencies when planning our services.

Joined UCLH: 1994

Click here to view Jane Hawdon's publications