Midwife wins 'alternative nobel'

Ina May Gaskin has been named a winner of this year’s Right Livelihood Award, widely known as the ‘Alternative Nobel Prize’.

Ina May, from the United States, will receive the international award for her work teaching and advocating natural childbirth methods in a society where medicated deliveries and caesarean sections are the norm.

She said: ‘A society that places a low value on its mothers and the process of birth will suffer an array of negative repercussions for doing so.

‘Good beginnings make a positive difference in the world, so it is worth our while to provide the best possible care for mothers and babies throughout this extraordinarily influential part of life.’

Ina May will receive a prize of 50,000 Euros from the Sweden based Right Livelihood Award Foundation.

The 71-year-old is widely credited with having created the modern home-birth movement as well as inspiring the renaissance of midwifery in America.

She is also the author of publications including the bestseller Spiritual Midwifery.

Together with her partners at The Farm Midwifery Centre in Tennessee, Ina May has assisted in more than 3000 unmedicated births. 

Her work and expertise have pioneered midwifery education around the world and her ‘Gaskin Maneuver’ – an obstetrical procedure she learned from traditional Guatemalan midwives – is now taught internationally.

For the last ten years, Ina May has campaigned to raise awareness of the dangers of the use of misoprostol to induce labour.

She is currently investigating maternal mortality rates in the US through her Safe Motherhood Quilt project - a giant quilt featuring the names of women who have died in childbirth in the US since 1982.

The 2011 Right Livelihood Award will be presented at a ceremony at the Swedish parliament on 5 December. Ina May is one of four winners.