Ina May Gaskin
Encyclopedia
Midwifery
Midwifery is a health care profession in which providers offer care to childbearing women during pregnancy, labour and birth, and during the postpartum period. They also help care for the newborn and assist the mother with breastfeeding....
, has been described as "the mother of authentic midwifery
Midwifery
Midwifery is a health care profession in which providers offer care to childbearing women during pregnancy, labour and birth, and during the postpartum period. They also help care for the newborn and assist the mother with breastfeeding....
."
Family
Gaskin was born to an IowaIowa
Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...
Protestant family (Methodist on one side, Presbyterian on the other). Her father, Talford Middleton, was raised on a large Iowa farm, which was lost to a bank not long after his father’s accidental death in 1926. Her mother, Ruth Stinson Middleton, was a home economics
Home Economics
Home economics is the profession and field of study that deals with the economics and management of the home and community...
teacher, who taught in various small towns within a forty-mile radius of Marshalltown, Iowa
Marshalltown, Iowa
Marshalltown is a city in and the county seat of Marshall County, Iowa, United States. The population was 27,552 in the 2010 census, an increase from the 26,009 population in the 2000 census. -History:...
. Both parents were college graduates, who placed a great importance on higher education
Higher education
Higher, post-secondary, tertiary, or third level education refers to the stage of learning that occurs at universities, academies, colleges, seminaries, and institutes of technology...
.
Her maternal grandparents ran a Presbyterian orphanage in Farmington, Missouri
Farmington, Missouri
Farmington is a city in St. Francois County located south of St. Louis in the Lead Belt region in Missouri in the United States. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, the population was 16,240. It is the county seat of St. Francois County. The Farmington Micropolitan Statistical Area embraces St...
, a small town in the Ozarks. Her grandmother, Ina May Beard Stinson, directed the orphanage for many years after her pastor husband’s death. She was an avid member of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union
Woman's Christian Temperance Union
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union was the first mass organization among women devoted to social reform with a program that "linked the religious and the secular through concerted and far-reaching reform strategies based on applied Christianity." Originally organized on December 23, 1873, in...
and a great admirer of Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an American social activist, abolitionist, and leading figure of the early woman's movement...
, Susan B. Anthony
Susan B. Anthony
Susan Brownell Anthony was a prominent American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women's rights movement to introduce women's suffrage into the United States. She was co-founder of the first Women's Temperance Movement with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as President...
, and Jane Addams
Jane Addams
Jane Addams was a pioneer settlement worker, founder of Hull House in Chicago, public philosopher, sociologist, author, and leader in woman suffrage and world peace...
. Gaskin’s paternal grandparents were all farmers. Adam Leslie Middleton, her grandfather, traveled and worked with farmers from Iowa, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
, South Dakota
South Dakota
South Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over...
, Nebraska
Nebraska
Nebraska is a state on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States. The state's capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha, on the Missouri River....
, and Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
in cooperative grain marketing, organizing communities, as well as larger outlets in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
and other large cities, to establish local cooperative grain elevators. His work as an organizer took him to Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
to work with wheat growers, and to Washington, D. C., on the invitation of the Secretary of Agriculture under President Warren G. Harding
Warren G. Harding
Warren Gamaliel Harding was the 29th President of the United States . A Republican from Ohio, Harding was an influential self-made newspaper publisher. He served in the Ohio Senate , as the 28th Lieutenant Governor of Ohio and as a U.S. Senator...
, Henry C. Wallace, father of Henry A. Wallace
Henry A. Wallace
Henry Agard Wallace was the 33rd Vice President of the United States , the Secretary of Agriculture , and the Secretary of Commerce . In the 1948 presidential election, Wallace was the nominee of the Progressive Party.-Early life:Henry A...
, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Secretary of Agriculture.
The Farm Midwifery Center
In 1971 Gaskin, with her husband StephenStephen Gaskin
Stephen Gaskin is a counterculture hippie icon best known for his presence in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco in the 1960s and for co-founding "The Farm", a famous spiritual intentional community in Summertown, Tennessee...
, founded a compound called The Farm
The Farm (Tennessee)
The Farm is an intentional community in Lewis County, Tennessee, near the town of Summertown, Tennessee, based on principles of nonviolence and respect for the Earth. It was founded in 1971 by Stephen Gaskin and 320 San Francisco hippies; The Farm is well known amongst hippies and other members of...
in Summertown Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
. There, she and the midwives of the Farm created The Farm Midwifery Center, one of the first out-of-hospital birth centers in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Standards of birthing at the Farm are modeled to the recommendations of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Family members and friends are commonly in attendance and are encouraged to take an active role in the birth. The Farm Midwifery Center has been able to maintain extremely low rates of medical intervention with consistently good birth outcomes for nearly four decades
Significance of her work
According to Carol Lorente (1995), the work of Gaskin and the midwives might not have had the impact it did, if it hadn't been for the publication of her book Spiritual Midwifery (1977):- "Considered a seminal work, it presented pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding from a fresh, natural and spiritual perspective, rather than the standard clinical viewpoint. In homebirth and midwifery circles, it made her a household name, and a widely respected teacher and writer."
Gaskin has been credited with the emergence and popularization of direct-entry midwifery (i.e. not training as a nurse first) in the United States since the early 1970s. Between 1977 and 2000, she published the quarterly magazine Birth Gazette. Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth, her second book about birth and midwifery, was published by Bantam/Dell in 2003. Her books have been published in several languages, including German, Italian, Hungarian, Slovenian, Spanish, and Japanese.
Since the early 1980s, she has been an internationally-known speaker on maternity care independently and for the Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA), lecturing throughout the world to midwives, physicians, doula
Doula
A Doula is someone who provides non-medical support to women and their families during labour and childbirth, and also the postpartum period. The term can also be used to describe other supportive roles for other life events such as abortion, death and more....
s, expectant parents and health policy-makers. She has spoken at medical and midwifery schools in several countries and at both the Starwood Festival
Starwood Festival
The Starwood Festival is a seven-day Neo-Pagan, New Age, multi-cultural and world music festival presented in mid- to late July. Approximately 1,500 people attend including staff, speakers and entertainers. The Starwood Festival is a camping event which holds workshops on a variety of subjects...
and the WinterStar Symposium, discussing the history and importance of midwifery.
She is the founder of the Safe Motherhood Quilt Project, a national effort developed to draw public attention to the current maternal death rates, and to honor those women who have died of pregnancy-related causes during the past twenty years.
She has appeared in such prominent films as Ricki Lake's movies Orgasmic Birth (2009) (directed by Debra Pascali-Bonaro) and The Business of Being Born (2008) (directed by Abby Epstein). She also appears in With Women: A Documentary About Women, Midwives and Birth (2006).
Outcomes
A study of home births assisted by the midwives of The Farm, (Durand, (1992)) looked at the outcomes of 1707 women who received care in rural Tennessee between 1971 and 1989. These births were compared to outcomes of over 14,000 physician-attendedPhysician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
hospital births in 1980. Comparing perinatal deaths, labor complications, and use of assisted delivery, the study found that "under certain circumstances, home births attended by lay midwives can be accomplished as safely as, and with less intervention than, physician-attended hospital deliveries."
The Gaskin Maneuver
The Gaskin Maneuver, also called all fours, is a technique to reduce shoulder dystociaShoulder dystocia
Shoulder dystocia is a specific case of dystocia whereby after the delivery of the head, the anterior shoulder of the infant cannot pass below the pubic symphysis, or requires significant manipulation to pass below the pubic symphysis. It is diagnosed when the shoulders fail to deliver shortly...
. Gaskin claims to have introduced it in 1976 after learning it from a Belizean woman who had, in turn, learned the maneuver in Guatemala, where it originated. In this maneuver, the mother supports herself on her hands and knees to resolve shoulder dystocia
Shoulder dystocia
Shoulder dystocia is a specific case of dystocia whereby after the delivery of the head, the anterior shoulder of the infant cannot pass below the pubic symphysis, or requires significant manipulation to pass below the pubic symphysis. It is diagnosed when the shoulders fail to deliver shortly...
. Switching to a hands and knees position causes the shape of the pelvis to change, thereby allowing the trapped shoulder to free itself and the baby to be born. Since this maneuver requires a significant movement from the standard lithotomy position
Lithotomy position
The lithotomy position is a medical term referring to a common position for surgical procedures and medical examinations involving the pelvis and lower abdomen, as well as a common position for childbirth in Western nations...
, it can be substantially more difficult to perform while under epidural anesthesia, but still possible, and can be performed by an experienced delivery room-team.
Recognition
Ina May Gaskin has lectured and continues to lecture at midwifery conferences and medical schools all over the world. On June 14th, 2008, she led a workshop called 'A Guide to Natural Childbirth' at the New York Open Center in Manhattan. She served as President of Midwives' Alliance of North America from 1996 to 2002. She received the ASPO/Lamaze Irwin Chabon Award (1997), and the Tennessee Perinatal Association Recognition Award. She was featured in Salon magazine’s “Brilliant Careers” in 1999. In 2003, she was made a Visiting Fellow of Morse College, Yale UniversityYale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
. Ina May was awarded the title "Honorary Doctor" in recognition of her work demonstrating the effectiveness and safety of midwifery by the Thames Valley University, London, England, on November 24, 2009. On September 29, 2011, Ina May Gaskin was announced as a co-winner of the 2011 Right Livelihood Award, sometimes also called "the Alternative Nobel Prize".
Books
- 1987 - Babies, Breastfeeding & Bonding (Bergin & Garvey Publishers) ISBN 0-89789-134-1
- 2002 - Spiritual Midwifery (The Book Publishing Company) ISBN 1-57067-104-4 (1st edition 1977)
- 2003 - Ina May's Guide to Childbirth (Bantam) ISBN 0-553-38115-6
- 2009 - Ina May's Guide to Breastfeeding (Bantam, US) ISBN 9780553384291 (Pinter & Martin, UK) ISBN 9781905177332
- 2010 - Birth Matters: A Midwife's Manifesta (Seven Stories Press, US) ISBN 9781583229279 (Pinter & Martin, UK) ISBN 9781905177585
Articles
- All-Fours Maneuver for Reducing Shoulder Dystocia During Labor, The Journal of Reproductive Medicine, May, 1998.
- Induced and Seduced: The Dangers of Cytotec. in Mothering, July-August, 2001. Retrieved: 2006-08-26.
- The Undervalued Art of Vaginal Breech Birth: a Skill Every Birth Attendant Should Learn in Mothering, July-August, 2004. Retrieved: 2006-08-26. {Broken Link}
- A Summary of Articles Published in English about Misoprostol (Cytotec) for Cervical Ripening or Induction of Labor, 2005-09-05 Retrieved: 2010-01-22.
Filmography
- With Women: A Documentary About Women, Midwives and Birth (2006)
- The Business of Being BornThe Business of Being BornThe Business of Being Born is a 2008 documentary film that explores the contemporary experience of childbirth in the United States. Produced by Ricki Lake,it compares various childbirth methods, including midwives, natural births, epidurals, and Cesarean sections...
(2008) - Orgasmic Birth: The Best-Kept SecretOrgasmic Birth: The Best-Kept SecretOrgasmic Birth: The Best-Kept Secret is a 2009 documentary film that examines the intimate nature of birth....
(2009)
External links
- Ina May Gaskin Official website
- Safe Motherhood Quilt Project
- Farm Midwifery Workshops
- The Farm Midwives Website
- Ina May Gaskin IMDB
- http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/sep/26/natural-birth-expertProfile by Viv GroskopViv GroskopViv Groskop is a British journalist and writer. She has written for publications including The Guardian, Evening Standard, The Observer, Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and Red magazine...
, The Guardian, September 2009]