Penny Simkin Still Advocating
By Danell Swim
March 24, 2008
Nearly 70 years old, Simkin is an internationally revered childbirth educator who, with nurse co-authors Janet Whalley and Ann Keppler, literally wrote the book on giving birth: “Pregnancy, Childbirth and the Newborn.” It’s been translated into Russian and Italian, among other languages; more than a million copies sold.
Known as the mother of the doula movement, Simkin has trained thousands of these caregivers to provide physical and emotional support for women during birth — the only intervention scientifically shown to decrease time in labor (by 25 percent) as well as to reduce Cesarean-section rates by a third.
“Birth never changes,” Simkin says. “But the way we manage it and the way we think of it has. Right now, we’re in a culture of fear around birth.”
Comments
Got something to say?