Dianne Bjarnson

Dianne is a traditional or classic midwife.  She founded the Midwives College of Utah (MCU) in 1980 and was president for 20 years. She taught labor and birth and complications at MCU for 37 years.

Dianne has extensive education in wholistic modalities including herbology, magnets, NLP, and hypnoses and is always seeking ways to address problems with more natural means.  Her herbal formulas are sold on SunstoneFormulas.com. She is publishing an Emergency Childbirth book in 2025 (EmergencyChildbirth.com).

Hakan Çoker

In a world of high cesarean and intervention rates birth is sees as a risk and more medicalized births became the normality. To change this you need to have a strategy without destroying the trust to the system. To have the classical natural births and birth supporting teams where to start? Mothers? Doctors? Midwives? Which tools or lectures you need? From whom you will find the support? We did it. You can also do it. Let's discuss all these together.

 
Hakan Çoker MD, Gynecologist and Obstetrician, LCCE. After working in various hospitals in his home country of Turkey, Hakan decided to be an advocate for natural births, childbirth education and continuous birth support. He became a Lamaze Certified Childbirth Educator, HypnoBirthing Practitioner, and Active Birth Trainer, and is co-creator of the Birth with No Regret Model. In 2010, he and psychologist Neşe Karabekir founded İstanbul Birth Academy. Since then he has been a teacher for Birth with No Regret teams, childbirth education classes, doula trainings, waterbirth classes and birth psychologist trainings. He is the country representative of the International MotherBaby Childbirth Initiative (MBCI)and International Childbirth Initiation. (İÇİ). He is the author of Natural Birth in 100 Questions and editor for Michel Odent’s books The Cesarean and the Scientification of Love, HypnoBirthing: The Mongan Method by Marry Mongan, Birthing From Within by Pam England, Mindfull Birthing by Nancy Bardacke. He also wrote a chapters in the books Birthing Models on the Human Rights Frontier and Obstetrician Speak Training, Practice, Fear and Transformation by Robbie Davis Floyd.

Joella Folk

Dr. Joella Folk has been providing specialized holistic pregnancy and newborn care as well as childbirth support for 20 years. She earned degrees in Human Development (2000),

Chiropractic (2005), and Midwifery (2014). As a Doctor of Chiropractic, her care is sought after to assist with pain during the perinatal period, complications related to fetal positioning, and newborn care after traumatic births. As a midwife, her specialty is working with women who have had previous difficult births and cesareans move through their healing journey and go on to have healthier future pregnancies and births. Her practice is in Kitsap county, Washington State, USA.

Dianne Garland

Dianne Garland, founder of MidwifeExpert, is a globally recognised authority on waterbirth.

Since 1989, she has pioneered education, research, and clinical practice in this field, training midwives worldwide. With over 40 years in midwifery, she has authored influential books and advises hospitals internationally, shaping best practices for safe, empowering waterbirth experiences.

Carol Gautschi

Carol Gautschi CPM LM CIM, has been a classical homebirth midwife since 1978. A respected international speaker and advocate for physiological birth, she is the creator of Classical Midwifery, a global initiative focused on reviving traditional midwifery practices through in-person conferences. Carol is also a founding member and past president of W.A.R.M. (Washington Alliance for Responsible Midwifery, Washington State).

She teaches and practices a classical approach to midwifery that combines empirical knowledge with time-honored traditions, honoring the physical, emotional, and spiritual aspects of both mothers and babies during childbirth. Committed to preserving the autonomy of midwifery and the integrity of organic homebirth, Carol is passionate about advocating for these values.

Carol is the mother of seven and grandmother of eight. She has been married to Paul Gautschi of “Back to Eden Film” fame since 1974. Together, they live and work on the beautiful Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, where Carol continues her work as a midwife, educator and mentor. More information can be found on her website: https://gentlebirths.net/

Johanna Honkanen

Johanna Honkanen is a Finnish midwife and educator. She is a pioneer in promoting waterbirths in Finland, teaching midwives, and writing hospital guidelines on waterbirth care.

She has bridged the gap between home and hospital midwifery in Finland by her own example, before enthusiastically working in both settings.

Nowadays Johanna works as a traditional birthkeeper, respecting womens own intuition and wishes. 

Jana Johnston

Jana is a Certified Professional Midwife based in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. Her Classical Midwifery journey began in 2012, completing extensive apprenticeship training with eight seasoned, three of which emphasized Classical Midwifery, each with over 20 to 40 years of experience, across five U.S. states and three countries. With over 450 births attended, Jana brings unparalleled expertise and dedication to her practice.

Jana is a passionate advocate for sustainable midwifery models, committed to fostering collaboration and friendship among midwives and expanding access to midwifery care globally. In 2021, she co-founded the Global Education of the Midwife (GEM) Midwifery Academy with fellow Kansas City midwife Rachel Schwepler. This initiative aims to provide accessible, flexible, and affordable education to raise up doulas and midwives worldwide to serve mothers and families in every corner of the globe.

Jana’s teaching experience spans multiple states in the U.S., Mexico (in Spanish), and Brazil (in "Portuñol"). She has led numerous doula and midwifery skills workshops, reflecting her commitment to nurturing the next generation of birth professionals through education and mentorship.

Nese Karabekir

Neşe is a highly accomplished medical professional specializing in individual and group therapy and birth education. She graduated from Keele University in the UK with a Master’s in Psychological Counseling and from Istanbul University with a Bachelor’s in Psychology. She has spent the last thirty years working as an individual and group therapist in Istanbul, and spoken at numerous national and international conferences.

Neşe’s vision and life purpose is to support women and men during and through pregnancy, including the postpartum period. She is passionate about making the world a better place, which starts with respecting the most precious members of society – babies while they are in the womb.

This has inspired her to found many institutes and birth academies. In 1996, she founded the Istanbul Psychodrama Institute and in 2010, she founded both the Istanbul Birth Academy and the Birth with No Regret Birth Team, which was founded with her partner, Dr. Hakan Çoker. The Birth with No Regret Birth Team acts at the unique intersection of medicine and psychology by assembling a birthing team consisting of a doctor, midwife and birth psychologist, who provide a holistic approach to childbirth. Neşe actively participates in all births through the Birth with No Regret Birth Team to support the parents and the medical professionals.

Neşe is the Acting President of the Hand to Hand for Birth Association and on the International Board of the International Society of Perinatal Psychology and Medicine. She has founded and is an Executive Board Member for the Prenatal Alliance and founded the Prenatal Science Partnership. She is also an active member of numerous worldwide organizations, including but not limited to the APPPAH, the European Network of Childbirth Association, the European Doula Network, the Federation of Psychodrama Training Organisation, and the European Association of Psychotherapy.

Neşe also prides herself on being an educator. She is one of the primary trainers at the Istanbul Birth Academy, providing Certified Childbirth Education in Doula and Birth Psychotherapy training. She has written numerous articles and book excerpts, which recently awarded her the 2019 Educator Award for APPPAH.

Sally Kelly

Sally Kelly came to midwifery later in life as a direct entry midwife based in the UK. She maintains her strong belief and trust in the physiological birth process, believing that, in the absence of pathology, birth should be observed—not managed or coerced. She has held on to her vision of birth despite the harsh realities and pressures of working in an organisation with a clear business focus. She has recently retired but still maintains involvement by teaching within midwifery.
 
Sally’s passion for normality led her to seek like-minded midwives. She is a member of the Association of Radical Midwives (ARM), where she served on the steering committee and also as one of the UK representatives for the European Midwives Association (EMA). 
 
Sally’s most passionate subjects are physiology of birth, bereavement, trauma and abuse.  Sally regularly supports teaching perineal suturing under the mantle of Peri Health Ltd. 
 
Outside of midwifery Sally has a love of wood carving, felting, painting, drawing, photography, singing, eclectic music, animals, dabbling in furniture restoration, and collecting figurines of pregnant women from around the world. She is a mother, grandmother, and midwife.

Angelina Martínez Miranda

The renowned traditional midwife living and practicing in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico. She is the inheritor of three generations of midwifery knowledge; her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother were all traditional midwives, practicing for around 40 years each.

She started attending births since she was 7 years old together with her grandmother and mother. At age of 13 she started attending births on her own. Angelina and her husband has 5 sons and many grandchildren.

Throughout her life she attended around 15000 births. Angelina owns a birth center, located next to her house, where, for years, she and her apprentices have attended an average of 23 births per month, with excellent outcomes. She is highly respected in her community. She is a long-time member of Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA) Mexico and a founding member of a new state organization created by the traditional midwives of Morelos. An accomplished speaker, she has given talks and workshops at international conferences all over the world. She is a strong source of inspiration for the many traditional midwives in Mexico who are working to preserve and revitalize their profession for the future.

Angelina combines traditional Mexican wisdom with the many courses she has taken in midwifery and related subjects to keep up-to-date with evidence-based obstetrics.

Aravah Salatino

Aravah Salatino is a homebirth midwife living in central Ohio, serving over half a dozen Amish/Mennonite communities and countless other families in her rural practice. Aravah became passionate about midwifery after her first birth, a c-section over two decades ago.

Several countries and six homebirths later, five of which were unassisted, Aravah's family settled, as did her midwifery. Delivering her own children amidst hostile politics surrounding her vbacs was the catalyst that shaped her passion to provide autonomous care. Travelling and meeting midwives all over the world wove the fabric of tradition into her practice, giving respect for all aspects of a woman's childbearing experience. Serving traditional communities has led to supporting and becoming skilled in breeches, twins, and vbacs, while understanding how to support the vast range of physiology that birth encompasses. Aravah's passion for humane and respectful birth has recently brought her travelling abroad to South Asia where she has been engaging in education and training by integrating into the Obstetrical delivery team of a large hospital.

Jan Tritten

Jan Tritten is the mother of Midwifery Today. She spent 12 years doing homebirths, which informed her ability to run Midwifery Today for 37 years. She organized and carried out 88 conferences around the world in 15 different countries. She goes to a welcoming Hispanic church and enjoys helping with their missions’ work.

Currently she supports and helps Carol in her Classical Midwifery endeavor. She has many gardens and cats and enjoys her semi-retirement.

Loredana Zordan

Loredana graduated in midwifery in 2003 from King’s College London. After graduation she gained extensive experience working as a community midwife and in birth centres at St Thomas’ Hospital and at University College London.

Her role as a community midwife has enabled her to offer women continuity of care by assisting them through pregnancy, delivery and the post-natal period and by facilitating home births. Her philosophy is to respect the physiology of birth and to support the mother and the couple in their birth choices, encouraging natural childbirth.

Loredana  works as a freelance midwife and specialises in traditional Chinese medicine. She is a certified acupuncturist and a member of the British Medical Acupuncture Society. She specialized in obstetric acupuncture obtaining the diploma in midwifery acupuncture in London. She uses acupressure and moxibustion in her clinical practice, to support  women who want to use acupressure during pregnancy,  for labour induction and in pain relief during labour and delivery.  

She is also an independent trainer. She has been training midwives in the use of acupressure during pregnancy and childbirth, at national and international workshops, for the last ten years.

Since introducing the workshop “Acupressure for pregnancy and birth” in Italy, many hospitals are welcoming it for labour preparation, induction of labour and for pain relief . The use of acupressure for pregnancy and childbirth allows midwives to be more autonomous in their profession and enables them to offer women a technique that facilitates a safe and less medicalised birth as it reduces the use of drugs that can be harmful to her and her baby.