Katherine Prown
Campaign Manager
The Big Push for Midwives
The Big Push for Midwives
Phone: 414-550-8025
Katie@TheBigPushForMidwives.org
Katie@TheBigPushForMidwives.org
Expertise in community organizing, marketing and networking, advocacy and understanding the political landscape
Katherine Prown, PhD, has 15 years of experience in community organizing, activism and teaching. A consultant, press liaison and advocate for organizations developing legislation to license Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs), Katherine is the Campaign Manager of the Big Push for Midwives Campaign. As Legislative Chair for the Wisconsin Guild of Midwives, Katherine drafted legislation to license Certified Professional Midwives in Wisconsin and co-led a statewide, bi-partisan grassroots advocacy campaign to successfully pass the bill into law in 2006. In support of that effort, she founded Wisconsin Birth Options, a statewide grassroots network devoted to maternity care reform in Wisconsin. In 2006 she received the Citizens for Midwifery Susan F. Hodges Award for Outstanding Leadership in Midwifery Advocacy.
Katherine also founded and continues to moderate a number of national e-lists focused on maternity care reform in other states, which have a combined membership of more than 1,000 individuals. In addition, she serves as a consultant to national and state midwifery and consumer organizations working on a range of maternity care issues, from increasing access to midwives to decreasing the rate of cesarean sections. In support of these efforts, Katherine has successfully organized and launched public relations campaigns and large-scale rallies in Richmond, VA, Washington, D.C., Chicago and Pittsburgh, which have drawn local and national media attention to the issues surrounding the legal status of midwives in the United States.
In her capacity as the Advocacy Director of the International Cesarean Awareness Network, Katherine researched and developed a white paper on the legal status of the rights of women seeking vaginal births after cesarean (VBAC) called "Protecting and Enforcing the Rights of Women Seeking Vaginal Birth after Cesarean: A Primer." She was also a contributing author to From Calling to Courtroom: A Survival Guide for Midwives, and she works with Conscious Woman, Inc. to provide continuing education workshops for midwives, attorneys and other professionals on the legal issues surrounding VBAC bans and on midwifery law.
A former professor of English and Women's Studies at the College of William and Mary, Katherine developed and taught courses on women and reproductive technologies, women and medicine, women's fiction and women writers of the South. She is the author of the book Revising Flannery O'Connor: Southern Literary Culture and the Problem of Female Authorship, a project that was one of the first recipients of the National Endowment for the Humanities Dissertation grants. Katherine's articles and book reviews have appeared in academic journals, in online magazines and on Web sites devoted to birth activism. She earned a B.A. from Grinnell College (1985) and an M.A. (1988) and Ph.D. (1993) from The College of William and Mary.
Katherine Prown, PhD, has 15 years of experience in community organizing, activism and teaching. A consultant, press liaison and advocate for organizations developing legislation to license Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs), Katherine is the Campaign Manager of the Big Push for Midwives Campaign. As Legislative Chair for the Wisconsin Guild of Midwives, Katherine drafted legislation to license Certified Professional Midwives in Wisconsin and co-led a statewide, bi-partisan grassroots advocacy campaign to successfully pass the bill into law in 2006. In support of that effort, she founded Wisconsin Birth Options, a statewide grassroots network devoted to maternity care reform in Wisconsin. In 2006 she received the Citizens for Midwifery Susan F. Hodges Award for Outstanding Leadership in Midwifery Advocacy.
Katherine also founded and continues to moderate a number of national e-lists focused on maternity care reform in other states, which have a combined membership of more than 1,000 individuals. In addition, she serves as a consultant to national and state midwifery and consumer organizations working on a range of maternity care issues, from increasing access to midwives to decreasing the rate of cesarean sections. In support of these efforts, Katherine has successfully organized and launched public relations campaigns and large-scale rallies in Richmond, VA, Washington, D.C., Chicago and Pittsburgh, which have drawn local and national media attention to the issues surrounding the legal status of midwives in the United States.
In her capacity as the Advocacy Director of the International Cesarean Awareness Network, Katherine researched and developed a white paper on the legal status of the rights of women seeking vaginal births after cesarean (VBAC) called "Protecting and Enforcing the Rights of Women Seeking Vaginal Birth after Cesarean: A Primer." She was also a contributing author to From Calling to Courtroom: A Survival Guide for Midwives, and she works with Conscious Woman, Inc. to provide continuing education workshops for midwives, attorneys and other professionals on the legal issues surrounding VBAC bans and on midwifery law.
A former professor of English and Women's Studies at the College of William and Mary, Katherine developed and taught courses on women and reproductive technologies, women and medicine, women's fiction and women writers of the South. She is the author of the book Revising Flannery O'Connor: Southern Literary Culture and the Problem of Female Authorship, a project that was one of the first recipients of the National Endowment for the Humanities Dissertation grants. Katherine's articles and book reviews have appeared in academic journals, in online magazines and on Web sites devoted to birth activism. She earned a B.A. from Grinnell College (1985) and an M.A. (1988) and Ph.D. (1993) from The College of William and Mary.
