APPPAH Newsmakers
Volume Five

Barbara Harper, R.N., Director of Global Maternal/Child Health Assoc. of Wilsonville, OR
taught a seminar on birth and waterbirth in Puerto Rico to an audience of physicians, psychologists, nurses, and pregnant women. She was interviewed by the local Health Department, promoted in a TV spot, and had front page coverage in two newspapers. You can follow her work on the internet at Geocities.

Susan Coates, Ph.D. a child psychotherapist in New York City
has led a team compiling a resource list on the Internet for therapists working with very young children on issues of attachment. She teaches and engages in attachment research at the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. This Fall she shares her insights from prenatal psychology in a course on Early Development at the Columbia Psychoanalytic Institute.

Gayle Peterson, Ph.D., L.C.S.W., Berkeley, CA,
is answering questions on-line for parents and spouses on marriage, family, sex, and parenting issues. "Ask Dr. Gayle" is running on the popular website Parentsplace. Gayle is the author of Birthing Normally (1984) and of An Easier Childbirth: A Mother's Workbook for Health and Emotional Well-Being During Pregnancy and Delivery (1991), both available from APG Distributors (800-275-2606).

Midwives June Whitson and Roxanne Potter
have produced the cassette tape Waiting for a Child: Songs, Relaxation and Visualization for Childbirth. Created with musicians, Barry and Shelley Phillips the tape features cello, tabla, Celtic harp, and oboe. Copies are available at 150 Via Venito, Corralitos, Santa Cruz, CA 95076.

Brazilian member Inez Gomes Bacelo Correia in Rio de Janeiro
has written The Impact of Television Upon the Unborn Baby: A Pioneer Study, 1997 (Rio de Janeiro: Grupo Palestra). Her Master's thesis on this subject opened new territory in 1987. The doctoral research undergirding this book was completed at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia in 1995.

Ronald Goldman, Ph.D. is Director of the Circumcision Resource Center in Boston
and author of Circumcision: The Hidden Trauma: How an American Practice Affects Infants and Ultimately Us All. His second book, Questioning Circumcision: A Jewish Perspective, just published by Vanguard in Boston (1997) is endorsed by five rabbis and explains why a growing number of Jews are forgoing the practice. Ron was recently featured on "W5," a Canadian investigative TV show.

Kelduyn Garland, LCSW, LMT
has been engaged by a consortium of schools, hospitals and mental health groups in Orlando, Florida to offer a series of one-day workshops April 15-17 on "Becoming Who We Are." The workshops, designed to reach community leaders, educators, parents, law enforcement and child care personnel, will deal with perinatal factors leading to attachment and bonding or to the unattached (and violent) child syndrome. (Orlando's Healthy Community Initiative: 407-649-6891).

Debra Norton, R.N., R.M., Dorset, UK,
a holistic midwife, health educator, and leader of the organization Birth Matters, has organized the 2nd Women's Health, Birth, and Healing Conference to be held at King Alfred's College, Winchester, Hants on April 25th. Michel Odent will speak and there will be a closing panel on "Soul Midwifery."

Prof. Ruth Fridman, Buenos Aires, Argentina,
music researcher and President, International Music Society for Prenatal Development, has recently written an article for the Journal La Obra on the importance of early parenting and lectured at the University of La Serena in Chile on early bonding through music.

Michael Trout of Champaign, IL,
infant mental health leader/trainer/video producer has produced "Multiple Transitions: A Young Child's Point of View on Foster Care and Adoption." No adults are seen or heard. The script distills what children would teach us, if they had the chance, about the experience of being moved around, and the difficulty remaining available for new attachment. (The Infant-Parent Institute 217-352-4060). Michael, one of the Directors of APPPAH has recently given presentations in Des Moines, Indianapolis, Detrot, University of Missouri, and Raleigh.

Joanna Wilheim, Sao Paulo, Brazil, President of the Brazilian Association for Study of Pre- and Perinatal Psychism (ABREP)
organized the Third "Brazilian Encounter for Study of Pre- and Perinatal Psychism The Dawn of Psychic Life" in Sao Paulo, in November. A professional audience of 200 counselors, psychologists and psychoanalysts heard four lectures on "Our Life In the Womb: A Scientific Update" by David B. Chamberlain. Joining him on the faculty was neonatologist Prof. Jorge Cesar Martinez from Buenos Aires, Argentina, a new member of the International Advisory Board of APPPAH, and prominent Brazilian medical professors and specialists in ultrasound work with unborn babies. All were united in telling of the great sensitivity and intelligence of prenates.

Tim Hammond and Lawrence Dillon, San Francisco,
have seen their educational video "Whose Body, Whose Rights?" accumulate dozens of honors and awards since it made its debut in 1995. The 56 minute film examines the ethics and the human rights issues of infant male circumcision, bypassing the interminable medical arguments on the subject. It engages a wide audience in college classes, professional conventions, libraries, film festivals, and on public television. Recently it was selected to be screened during the conference of the American Public Health Association.