Workshop: Contemporary Midwifery and Homebirth
Sarah Pontell : Licensed Traditional Midwife
Mission : I encourage women to become our own healers and explore our intuitive wisdom.
This presentation is open to women and men interested in alternative birthing options, the history of lay healers / midwives, the current politics around childbirth and midwifery, and the hospital industry and "managed care." Sarah Pontell has delivered over 500 babies in homes, hospitals and birth centers in several countries, and will address the importance of family-centered, low-intervention birth. In this interactive workshop we will explore together preconceived ideas about birth, and how pregnancy/birth became medical events and pathological conditions when they are some of the most normal and natural events of our lives. Birth videos will be shown.
I am a traditional midwife trained in the apprenticeship model and a graduate of the National Midwifery Institute, a San Francisco-based direct-entry midwifery school. I have extensively studied multicultural views of the body, medicinal herbs, and diverse aspects of healing. I completed my training at Casa de Nacimiento, a high-volume midwifery clinic on the Mexico/Texas border. I hold a BA in Women’s Studies from UC Berkeley and am a certified acupressure practitioner. I earned both my Midwifery License (LM) from the California Medical Board and my Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) certification from the North American Registry of Midwives in 2000. In 2002, I volunteered my midwifery services in South India, where I practiced in several rural hospitals. I provided prenatal, post partum, and general home health care in nearby Hindu and Muslim villages, in the state of Tamil Nadu. Today, I have a homebirth practice and a well-woman gynecology practice in the Bay Area. My daughter, Dahlia was born at home in 2003.
My philosophy about healing: I believe that women’s knowledge of healing is a tool for empowerment on all levels, especially in an age when allopathic “healing“ in the medical system is becoming a financially driven business. I encourage women to become ourr own healers, and explore our intuitive wisdom, as part of our diverse experience. I believe that childbirth is a time when women can embrace the physical, spiritual, and emotional as one, and that it is a normal, natural and supreme right of passage.
