Gloria Lemay’s Tribute

This tribute to Jeannine was published in Mothering Magazine last spring. The staff at Mothering were very excited to name Jeannine
to this honour roll and I know it meant a lot to Jeannine. I wrote
it in the format that they require so it's pretty dry but I wanted
you to see it and know that the women who run Mothering really went
out of their way to make this tribute to darling Jeannine.
Love, Gloria Lemay
Vancouver BC
www.glorialemay.com

Jeannine and Gloria in Vancouver, 2003

Living Treasures
Jeannine Parvati Baker is one of America's most loved traditional
midwives. She is the author of "Prenatal Yoga & Natural Childbirth" and
"Hygieia: A Woman's Herbal", and she co-authored " Conscious
Conception". She is a lay midwife, Ashtanga yogini, astrologer,
founder of Hygieia College, Herbal Medicine-Woman, the mother of
six adult children, and a grandmother. Jeannine has lectured and
taught to thousands of parents and student midwives in the past 35
years and is a popular speaker at childbirth conferences. She has
passionately stood for the right of women to give birth in full
sexual self-expression and for the rights of male babies to have an
intact foreskin. She was honored in 2003 by NOCIRC with a Lifetime
Achievement Award for her life of activism in "support of (the)
normal and natural, especially the bodily integrity of infants and
children." Jeannine calls herself an intactivist, neologist, and birthkeeper.

After the waterbirths of her last two babies, Jeannine's work became
focused on Freebirth (birth unassisted by a paid professional) -
where the mother is her own midwife. Jeannine has spoken at
conferences (as keynote) around the world, been
interviewed for numerous periodicals, broadcasting media, and
films, and has written extensively on the topic of Freebirth for
over a generation. She is featured in the film "A Clear Road to
Birth" where she speaks of the duty we have to clear the road of
obstacles so that the next traveler will not be obstructed. Her
passions lie in waterbirth, unassisted birth, the intact male
foreskin, Lotus birth and traditional medicine.

Today, Jeannine lives with her youngest daughter, Halley, and her
son, Quinn Baker, in Utah. She has been ill for the past year and
has had students and visiting midwives come to care for her and
help Quinn with the family business.