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The HERSTORY of HYGIEIA COLLEGEof Womancraft and Lay Midwifery The conception of Hygieia College came in the early 1970's. At that time I had three little girls five years of age (and younger) and had answered the call from my community to be a lay midwife. It was dawning on me, that gaining the education to be the best midwife I could, was a task for a lifetime and yet here I had my own babies to care for, so nursing school wasn’t an option. (Actually, I was already enrolled in nature's "nursing school" by breastfeeding my daughters anyway!) There are as many ways to learn midwifery as there are midwives. The best way I have found to learn something is to teach it and so I surrounded myself with the finest lay midwives and obstetricians that I could find and hired them to teach at our first non-profit, educational corporation called the Center for Family Growth and later, the Matrix Midwifery School. All along I am teaching prenatal yoga and fertility awareness. Who said mothers could not increase the upward mobility of the mind with our children in arms? Education for mothers was now possible as children of any age were, and are always, welcomed to attend classes. Hygieia College gestated in California through the 1970's. We had a Center, regular classes and a stellar faculty. However, come the early 1980's, and we moved to Utah. From the beginning, I envisioned midwifery within the context of womancraft – that is, birth assistance is but one of the many skills for women healers. Here in central Utah, the idea of "womancraft", much less a Mystery School, was somewhat unusual and so locals tended not to enroll like they had in California – this is when the idea of a correspondence course came to me. Since 1982, Hygieia College is an International Home Study Course for mothers and others who care about birth, with frequent Gatherings and Workshops around the world. The birth of the college came in 1993, when I was nominated for Woman of the Year Award for Contributions to Medicine by WHO's WHO of Cambridge, England. By then I had keynoted at many conferences – not just midwifery or birth conferences, but at the Association for Pre and Perinatal Psychology and Health, Education Conferences, Genital Integrity Congresses, Herbal and Natural Healing Conferences and was a guest teacher of lay midwifery at many universities. My books were being called "classics" and I appeared on TV, radio and was widely anthologized in a vast array of publications. It would be this topic that would draw me out of my garden in the summer and my book-lined study in the winter, to share my word medicine about 
healing the Earth by healing birth and the importance of lay midwifery.
By then I had six children of my own and was soon to be a grandmother.
(First grandbaby was born underwater in our home in 1995). I have been a
consistent voice in the wilderness, so to speak, on behalf of the
de-criminalization of midwifery throughout the world for about thirty
years and I love my calling with a passion.From the perspective of HYGIEIA COLLEGE, what sets lay midwifery apart from the standardized training offered through other schools is the emphasis on each family as a unique, yet whole, system. Childbirth is experienced within the context of the family's psychosexuality and spirituality. Perinatal psychology is central to the Course. From the perspective of soul-making, birth is seen as beyond a "normal" event in the family's life cycle. Birth is viewed as initiation, the central rite-of-passage for the maiden-becoming-mother, the lover-becoming-father and the children who are becoming siblings. A lay midwife therefore is an assistant for this journey with the big picture in mind – that is, how a mother gives birth will affect not only the entire family psychologically, but our world. Our work is to clear the road of any inheritances in the prenatal period that might mitigate a spontaneous birth. Through our prenatal visits, the mother unpacks any excess baggage and leaves it behind as she journeys through birth. In simple terms, a lay midwife is not only attending to the physical needs, but to the psychological needs of each family. Indeed, she views these needs as one. These changing needs present themselves through a series of prenatal rituals derived from midwives of the past as well as the emerging wisdom in perinatal psychology today. I call it "soul hygiene" in which emotions, dreams and fantasies are all important. Lay midwifery also uses the earth-based skills – primal and archetypal psychology, herbology, yoga, touch (massage, reflexology, mudras), astrology, sound and word medicine. In a lay midwifery practice, birth happens at home (for the most part) and the need for transport is reduced. The midwifery visits include the sharing of dreams and desires -- there is no measuring of the mother's growing joy. Indeed, all medical management of pregnancy is deconstructed with one query foremost in mind. "How does this serve?" If a prenatal routine does not serve the baby, mother, father and family, society and the Earth, then it is up for critical evaluation. This is not to say that Hygieia students are unaware of the dominant perspective of medical science. We learn how to speak "obstetrics" just as any conquered nation will learn the language of its oppressor. However obstetrics is a narrow lens through which to view the mystery of birth and only to the degree that it serves, it is employed. Otherwise, we trust that if a woman can conceive a baby without the help of the expert, she can give birth in kind. In the latter part of the year 2001, there are about 1000 students on almost every continent in the world enrolled in HYGIEIA COLLEGE. Some also have their own midwifery schools and many are midwives already. Most of those have been trained medically to attend birth and find their education lacking now that the focus has shifted to a home-based practice. My purpose is to be midwife to each student. Thus, the Course is modeled to be resonant with birthing energy: It is self-paced with a rhythm to the personal dialogue set by each student. This evaluative dialogue is analogous to the maiutic method in philosophy – education in the manner of a midwife. The premise of this idea, education in the manner of a midwife, is that each of us has the entire truth within and by asking the right question at the right time, this truth is delivered. Hence, the emphasis in HYGIEIA COLLEGE is on word medicine – the distillation of language into an authentic investigation. As perception of reality is shaped by language, midwives can participate in miracles through a carefully chosen phrase. I liken this inward skill to learning how to make word tinctures, which can be carried with a midwife anywhere birth happens. Ultimately, the vision of HYGIEIA COLLEGE is for every mother to be a midwife. Lay midwifery is consistent with this ideal as it returns the power to give birth back to the mother, baby and father. A lay midwife is not a member in the cult of the expert but rather your best woman friend. She hasn’t necessarily an office yet she has a testimony that birth is sacred and that she will do no harm. We carry no malpractice insurance, licenses or medical equipment. Indeed, we carry nothing remedial (but perhaps our breath) to a birth. We provide continuity of care and know the mother (usually) before the pregnancy. We sometimes cook and clean for the family and often remain friends long after the birth. If we lay midwives are mothers, our children help us by being with us. The new mother learns how to nurture just by being with us the way women do when sharing wisdom over cups of tea, children on our laps. How lay midwives are like other kinds of midwives, is that we all love birth and are answering our soul's call to serve the best way we can. For many years I have had this vision of seeing all of us who are involved in birth sitting in one circle together. From my point of view, it looks as if medwives who have licenses are diametrically opposed to my position. To the side I see a CPM (certified professional midwife) who bridges the worlds. By looking directly across the circle, I can also see what is behind the CNM (certified nurse midwife), as she can see what is behind me. We cannot view what is "back there" on our own, for whenever I try to see what is behind me, I cast a new shadow. In other words, we keep each other honest. We need each other when we’re sitting face-to-face in our truth. In the circle of life, in any eco-system, we need bio-diversity to thrive. HYGIEIA COLLEGE focuses on what unifies all midwives as well as what distinguishes lay midwifery from the prevailing standard of practice. By far, we are more alike than different and each of us is vital for healing birth at this time. The name for HYGIEIA COLLEGE is derived from the Greek Goddess of Health. Childbirth is a healthy moment in time when familes celebrate life's ordinary miracle. Midwives are honored to attend, be it with fetoscope around our necks, or apron, or prayer beads. Through Hygieia, who symbolizes the unity of consciousness or wholeness, I can realize that I am all midwives, all mothers. 
I am the CNM protesting cyotec or circumcision at my hospital and I am
the baby whose life is better for her courage. I am the CPM who has lost
my license (again) and now under a restraining order and I am the
forensic midwife giving testimony against or for my sister. By my
presence I draw out the beauty in a mother as well as the monsters of
her underworld. I am the midwife who leaves a house full of children to
attend birth and I am the midwife who returns from a house full of
children to an empty one. I am the midwife who measures fundal height
and I am the midwife who casts transits for the family's horoscopes. From my hands come a handshake, a soothing touch and from my hands come
an episiotomy, an infibulation, an intubation . I am the midwife who is
called by my cell phone to a birth and the one who awakens from a dream
that labor is now in earnest, and then the phone rings. I am the one who
holds the best for this birth in my heart and room for nothing else. And
I am each baby born who trusts that love is what this world is all
about.May we flourish and celebrate our diversity, sitting in one circle. For the Babies, Blessed Be and Blessed Do, Gentle Mother/Midwife. Jeannine Parvati Baker 13 October 2001 Joseph UT USA Dear Jeannine, I think of you so often that if it weren't for email I'd never stay in touch! I wanted to pass along the ever unfolding way Hygieia College continues to guide and instruct me. At the time I originally answered a question re: "Inanna's descent", I felt only the vaguest of understanding. Now as I begin my initiation into menopause -- oh my! The story really hits home. Literally divesting myself of all of the "garments" of personae I've considered to be me and living the Mystery of "don't know" is quite a journey, and only just begun. Thank you for posing questions a decade and a half ago that continue to spark wonder and new openings. Many Blessings for you and yours always! Leenie Hobbie Hygieia College Graduate Table of Contents: Hygieia Home & Latest Updates Wild Woman Vision Camp Home Study Course The HERSTORY of HYGIEIA COLLEGE Additional Postings and Updates |
