Ricki Lake’s legacy and perhaps her greatest love is her role as an independent filmmaker. Her award-winning documentary The Business of Being Born debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2007. Lake worked closely with filmmaker Abby Epstein on the project, which resonated with audiences, striking up a conversation about a subject that is sometimes considered taboo. Declared a film that ‘should be seen by every pregnant woman in America’, it has also inspired a rise in homebirth rates and an increase in midwife practices. Lake is again collaborating with Abby Epstein and they are currently in production on two documentaries; Sweetening The Pill, about hormonal birth control and Weed The People, about medicinal cannabis. Both films are slated for late 2015 release. Lake competed on the 13th season of “Dancing with the Stars,” where she partnered with three-time champion Derek Hough, making it to the finals. She recently performed with The New York Pops at Carnegie Hall. At the age of 24, Lake entered the living rooms of millions of television viewers with her daily talk show, “The Ricki Lake Show”. After 11 successful seasons, “The Ricki Lake Show” wrapped in 2005. Lake returned in 2012, and won the Emmy for Outstanding Talk Show Host. The world first met Lake in 1988 as Tracy Turnblad in John Waters’ film Hairspray. Her additional film credits include Cry-Baby, Serial Mom, Working Girl, Last Exit To Brooklyn, and Mrs. Winterbourne. Television credits include “Babycakes”, “China Beach”, “The King of Queens”, “Matters of Life & Dating”, and “Loving Leah”. Abby Epstein produced and directed the celebrated documentary The Business of Being Born, with her longtime producing partner, Ricki Lake. Heralded as a “must-see for every pregnant woman,” The Business of Being Born premiered at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival where it was named among “Best of the Fest” by New York Magazine and The Wall Street Journal. The Business of Being Born was released theatrically in 2008 and had its broadcast premiere on Showtime. The success of the film inspired Abby and Ricki’s book Your Best Birth, which was published by Hachette. Their follow-up DVD series More Business of Being Born featuring Cindy Crawford, Alanis Morissette, Gisele Bundchen and Christy Turlington was released in 2011. Abby made her film directing debut at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival with the documentary, Until the Violence Stops, featuring Jane Fonda, Eve Ensler, Salma Hayek and Rosie Perez. The film played at the Miami, Santa Barbara, Maui and Locarno Film Festivals and won the Audience Award at the Amnesty International Film Festival in Vancouver. Until the Violence Stops premiered on Lifetime Television and received an Emmy and a Gracie Allen Award. Under their joint venture BOBB Films, Abby and Ricki served as Executive Producers of the 2014 documentary Breastmilk and are in production on two new films: Weed the People and Sweetening the Pill. Prior to her film work Abby directed theater, helming National Tours and international premieres of RENT and “The Vagina Monologues.”

Because of her love for music and the arts, in 1997, she began her career in Los Angeles at Capitol Records doing A&R. In 1999, she worked at MCA records and in 2003 she worked as a music manager at The Firm. Lindsay had the pleasure of working with, managing and doing PR for some of the biggest artists in the music industry.

She became a midwife in 1977 after the powerful homebirth of one of her daughters. Her mission is to make loving midwifery care the norm for birthing women and their babies throughout the world. She does this by organizing Midwifery Today conferences around world as well as publishing the magazine. One of her favorite tasks is to look at photos of mothers and babies and births so she is honored to participate in this contest.

While well trained at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in the standard medical model of obstetrics he had the respect and vision to support the midwifery model of care and served as a backup consultant to many home and birthing center midwives for 25 years. From 1996 to 2010 he owned The Woman’s Place for Health, Inc., an innovative, collaborative practice of Certified Nurse Midwives and Obstetricians in Camarillo, California working closely with chiropractors, acupuncturists and naturopathic doctors. In 2004, Dr. Fischbein co-authored, “Fearless Pregnancy, Wisdom & Reassurance from a Doctor, a Midwife and a Mom” www.fearlesspregnancy.net . For his efforts he has been awarded the Doulas Association of Southern California (DASC) Physician of the year award three times and was the very first recipient of DASC’s lifetime achievement award in support of pregnant women. He has spoken internationally on breech and vaginal birth after cesarean section and has appeared in many documentaries, including: “More Business of Being Born”, “Happy Healthy Child”, “Reducing Infant Mortality”, “Heads Up: The Disappearing Art of Breech Delivery” and multiple YouTube videos discussing birth choices and respect for patient autonomy and decision making. Dr Fischbein now works directly with home birthing midwives www.birthinginstincts.com In 2015 he published a paper titled “’Home Birth’ with an Obstetrician, A series of 135 Out of Hospital Births”. His long term goal is to educate the next generation of practitioners in the normalcy of human pregnancy and birth and to re-teach the skills that make the profession of obstetrics unique. He offers hope for those women who prefer and respect a natural birthing environment and cannot find supportive practitioners for VBAC, twin and breech deliveries in conventional hospital models. Hear more of his thoughts and advocacy for evidenced-based, reasonable choices on his weekly podcast at www.drstuspodcast.com.

Back in 2007, she was considered a “pioneer” in area of birth photography as it wasn’t commonly practiced at the time. She is known world-wide for her authentic, lifestyle portraiture, and unexpected, beautiful newborn and baby imagery.

Its rare to find a Maternal-Fetal Medicine specialist (high risk doctor) who believes and speaks to the normalcy of birth even when faced with the most complicated pregnancies and fetal issues. Dr. Chavira inspires and moves people. He can easily move from speaking to a large group of providers, to consumers and birth professionals. Beyond technical talks, he speaks to the ways we can improve care overall. Dr. Chavira has spoken publicly in lectures, grand rounds, community forums and panels, podcasts, and large conferences.

modern photographer and is also the photographer behind Christina Beckett Photography. Christina is a wife, mother to four, homeschooler, and photography addict whose love affair began with a film camera at the age of 15.

Peggy was the editor and publisher of Mothering Magazine from 1980 to 2011. The author of Having a Baby Naturally; Natural Family Living; The Way Back Home; and A Quiet Place, Peggy has conducted workshops at Omega Institute, Esalen, La Leche League, and Bioneers. She is the mother of four and grandmother of three.

She earned a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Dr. Dekker has built a strong reputation in maternal and infant health circles for her pioneering work as the founder of Evidence Based Birth.® The mission of EBB is to raise the quality of childbirth care globally, by putting accurate, evidence based research into the hands of families and communities, so they can make informed, empowered choices. You can learn more about Dr. Dekker’s background at her website here!

She co-founded Canadian Birth Photographers organization in 2011 and has deeply enjoyed watching the birth photography industry grow in popularity across Canada and the world. Her work has been featured in print publications such as Midwifery Today, Vancouver Sun, Canadian Family, and was published in a 2015 book titled "For Love- 25 Heartwarming Celebrations of Humanity." After winning "Best Overall Image" from the IAPBP 2017 competition, she has chosen to focus on education, mentoring and speaking.

Her documentary work focuses on women’s issues and more specifically, the labour process. In addition to being professionally trained Jenna has a degree in Psychology, trained as a doula in 2011, and her birth work has been published internationally both online and in print. She currently teaches documentary birth and family photography to photographers around the world.

Her message is simple, that birth really matters to women, that it can be empowering, inspiring and life-enhancing, and above all, that they can do it! She is a tireless advocate for women’s choices and for the notion that birth can be positive in any setting, from home to the operating theatre. As well as her work for the PBM, Milli writes for various publications about birth and motherhood, including the Telegraph, Guardian, BestDaily, GoodtoKnow and more. She is a member of several advisory groups on birth issues and speaks regularly about positive birth at events around the world. She lives in Somerset with her partner and three small children.

On his sixth day of life, Cheryl and her husband Michael had to make the devastating decision to remove their son Maddux from life support. During Maddux’s time in the hospital she tried capturing photographs of her son, but what she was able to capture only showed red swollen eyes and tear-stained cheeks. She could not comfortably hang the photographs on the wall alongside her older children because they showed so much sadness. She wanted heirloom portraits of her son in black and white when he was not connected to tubes and wires. She was able to receive the cherished heirloom photographs from photographer Sandy Puc’. Cheryl knew that other parents would want the same gift, which inspired her to create the organization Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep. Since NILMDTS was founded, more than 40,000 sessions have been photographed around the world. NILMDTS is in every state across the United States and in multiple countries. Cheryl has been featured in most major media outlets including NBC, CBS, CNN, The Today Show, The Huffington Post, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and hundreds of other media outlets. Cheryl has three grown children and resides with her husband Michael in Evergreen, CO.

Shortly thereafter she began attending the births of her students as their doula. Heather founded HypnoBirthing of Central Texas in 2003, which has provided childbirth education to over 450 families in the communities of Central Texas, from Waco to San Antonio. After the birth of her third child, she felt led to a career in midwifery and in 2004 she applied and was accepted in to the Association of Texas Midwives Midwifery Training Program. Her apprenticeship began at Juneau Family Birth Center, a nonprofit birth center in Juneau, Alaska. She was hired there as the staff doula for the Young Families program, which offered free prenatal education and birth doula services to teenage parents. After returning to Austin in late 2005, Heather continued an apprenticeship at a birth center/homebirth practice for the next 15 months. Heather graduated from ATM and was licensed as a midwife in 2007. She then began her private homebirth practice, Genesis Midwifery, where she practiced until opening Central Texas Birth Center in Georgetown, TX in early 2011. She is passionate about sharing her knowledge with student midwives and enjoys teaching for the Association of Texas Midwives Midwifery Training Program. Heather now has 6 children, and has been married to her high school sweetheart since 1996.

Her mission through The Define School is to help photographers gather the tools they need to find their own unique perspective, while building community through small classes and mentoring relationships with teachers.

Jen has grown a community of over 177,000 via the Plus Mommy Facebook page. Jen is also a childbirth educator, professional speaker, wife, and mother to a charismatic 7-year-old.