Katherine Prown, PhD, has 15 years of experience in community organizing, activism and teaching. A consultant, press liaison and advocate for organizations working on legislation to license Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs), Katherine is a founding member of the National Birth Policy Coalition and the Campaign Manager of The Big Push for Midwives 2008.

As Legislative Chair for the Wisconsin Guild of Midwives, Katherine drafted legislation to license Certified Professional Midwives in Wisconsin and co-lead 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, and 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.

Jane Crawford Peterson, CPM, LM, has more than 26 years experience as a leader in midwifery education and advocacy. During the course of her career as a midwife, she has delivered more than 1330 babies. Her clinical experience as a midwife became the basis for her advocacy on behalf of the creation of a statewide set of practice guidelines in Wisconsin, which were later incorporated into the national midwifery credentialing and practice standards that form the basis of the Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) credential and the National Association of Certified Professional Midwives (NACPM) Standards of Practice.

Jane is a founding member of the National Birth Policy Coalition, as well as Advocacy Trainer and Professional Facilitator for The Big Push for Midwives Campaign 2008.

She is also a founding member of the Wisconsin Center for Midwifery Studies and was instrumental in coordinating and implementing programs among public health departments, the Bureau of Vital Statistics, the State Laboratory for Hygiene and midwives to facilitate the implementation of newborn screening programs targeting underserved populations throughout the state. Together, these programs have resulted in a 70 percent increase in newborn screening compliance among at-risk populations for the early detection of metabolic diseases that, if left untreated, can cause severe illness, brain damage or death.

In her capacity as President of the Wisconsin Guild of Midwives, the professional organization for midwives providing out-of-hospital maternity care in the state since 1975, Jane co-lead the statewide, bipartisan grassroots organizing effort to successfully pass Act 292, which authorizes Certified Professional Midwives in Wisconsin to become licensed and regulated healthcare providers.

In recognition of her longstanding outreach among Wisconsin’s plainclothes (Amish and Mennonite) communities, Jane was awarded grants by the March of Dimes and the Waisman Center. These grants are in support of her work to establish library and printed resources for plainclothes families about prenatal care and childbirth and to co-author Plain Talk about Babies, an educational pamphlet designed to raise awareness among both providers and the families they care for about the genetic conditions specific to plainclothes populations, as well as the prenatal and pregnancy-related maternity care protocols appropriate to those populations.

Jane has a BS in General Science and Education from the University of Wisconsin, Steven’s Point and is a Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) credentialed by the North American Registry of Midwives (NARM), as well as a Licensed Midwife in the State of Wisconsin. She has also completed midwifery course requirements from the American Childbirth Institute and the American Academy of Midwifery and Family Centered Maternity Care.

Susan M. Jenkins is a partner in The Sanchez Law Firm, which has its headquarters in Washington, D.C. She has practiced in the areas of health care law and administrative law for more than 25 years. Susan is a founding member of the National Birth Policy Coalition, and serves as Attorney for Legal Strategy for The Big Push for Midwives Campaign 2008.

She worked for several years as a staff attorney with the Federal Trade Commission, one of the two U.S. antitrust enforcement agencies. She has also served as General Counsel of the American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM), the national professional association of certified nurse-midwives.

Susan returned to private law practice in 1995, with a particular emphasis on legal issues affecting certified nurse-midwives, licensed midwives, and birth centers, including such issues as including insurance law, professional regulation, licensure, certification and accreditation, clinical privileges, practice-related contract and business issues, and birth center operation.

She also serves as a consultant to other attorneys and law firms on health care, and legislative and regulatory issues throughout the United States. Susan has published several articles, including "The Myth of Vicarious Liability: Impact on Barriers to CNM Practice," Journal of Nurse-Midwifery, Vol. 39, No. 2 (March-April 1994). She was the primary author of Nurse-Midwifery Today: A Handbook of State Legislation (1995 edition, published by ACNM).

Susan is a member of the advisory board of the District of Columbia Developing Families Center, a large freestanding birth center in the D.C. inner-city, and a former member of the Council on Standards of the National Association of Childbearing Centers. She has lectured extensively on legal issues that affect midwives, birth centers, and other health professionals and providers. She has served as a guest lecturer at Georgetown University School of Nursing (Nurse-Midwifery Graduate program), Catholic University of America (Nurse Practitioner Graduate program), the University of New Mexico (Nurse-Midwifery Graduate program), and the International School of Midwifery.

Susan was graduated summa cum laude from Hunter College of the City University of New York, is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and received her J.D. degree from Columbia University School of Law in 1977. She is a member of the District of Columbia Bar, and is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the District of Columbia, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits, and the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Steff Hedenkamp has 15 years of experience in communications, public relations, relationship management, marketing, and design and layout. Her clientele has included government offices and agencies, engineering and architectural firms, national security strategists and corporations, technology firms, utility companies, accounting and legal firms, national retail corporations and nonprofit organizations.

Current projects are with strategic partner firms ASTRA Communications and Meridian, where Steff works with communication and business gurus Lynn Hinkle and Rania Anderson, respectively, on behalf of BNIM Architects, which brings its long-standing green vision and planning capabilities to the communities it serves. From the green rebuilding of rural America taking root in Greensburg, Kan., to the integration of green and sustainable stormwater management solutions into City policy and procedure, Steff is humbled to serve the "green team," which perceives so clearly that the economy of the future will be a cleaner, greener one.

In addition, Steff is a founding member of the National Birth Policy Coalition (NBPC), and is the Campaign Communications Coordinator for The Big Push for Midwives 2008.

Steff specializes in the design, development, and implementation of communications functions critical to the success of complex organizational programs. Relationship management and stakeholder relations are central to Steff’s approach to working with her clients and their target audiences. She uses authentic communications strategies and tactics to increase awareness, promote understanding, extend and enhance internal and external dialogue, and foster consensus and forward motion. Her extensive verbal abilities, combined with her ability to see relationships between ideas that are not readily apparent enable her to think both analytically and creatively, making inferences from both logical and creative sources.

As an extension of her love of the spoken word, Steff is also an information architect and communications designer, clearly communicating complex ideas using written and visual strategies. From compelling plans, presentations, proposals, reports, training materials, and internal and external project deliverables, she has the uncommon ability to swiftly and precisely craft both the "words and design" of today’s most creative and effective communication tools. Steff formed Red Quill Communications, Inc. in 2000 as a way to extend to government and commercial clients the benefits of having their messages spoken with a clear, authentic and imaginative voice.

In a previous life, Steff worked with Kansas City advertising and PR firm, Barkley, one of the top ten independent agencies in the United States, where she managed national client accounts involving public relations, crisis communications, cause marketing, community relations, strategic planning, and business development. Steff attended Kansas State University's School of Journalism, and she has received special recognition for her work in communications: