Mario Merialdi, MD, PhD, graduated from Parma University, Italy where he alsocompleted a residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology. He subsequently obtained a Master in Public Health and a PhD in International Health and Human Nutrition from the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University. In 2001 he joined the World Health Organization, Department of Reproductive Health and Research. In 2007 he has been appointed Coordinator of the Improving Maternal and Perinatal Health Team in the same Department.


Anthony Costello is Professor of International Child Health and head of the Centre for International Health and Development at the UCL Institute of Child Health, and Director of the UCL Institute for Global Health (London). . He is the founder and Executive Director of Women and Children First, a UK based NGO which has developed an international programme of support for programmes to improve maternal and child health in poor populations.


José Ángel García Hernández is Head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology of the Hospital Materno Infantil de Canarias, in Las Palmas. He is in charge of the ‘Unidad Docente de Obstetricia y Ginecología del Departamento de Ciencias Médicas y Quirúrgicas del Centro de Ciencias de la Salud de la Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria’. Author or co-author of 181 communications, 45 presentations and 67 written publications, monographs and book chapters.


Prof. Dr. Michael Stark was the Chairman of the Ob/Gyn Departments of the HELIOS Hospitals Group, a European network with 64 hospitals, from 2002 to 2008. President of the New European Surgical Academy since 2004. He modified operations like caesarean section and vaginal hysterectomy. He demonstrated and taught these methods in training courses held in 37 countries. He developed a new endoscopic concept: single-entry Natural Orifice surgical procedures through the pouch of Douglas. Prof. Dr. Stark published 75 peer-reviewed articles, a cesarean section book and many book chapters.


Kerstin Uvnas-Moberg, MD, PhD, is Professor of physiology at the Karolinska Institute (Stockholm) and at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, in Uppsala. She has published authoritative studies on the behavioural effects of oxytocin.


Sheila Kitzinger has been for 40 years the international symbol of childbirth activism. Mother of five children born at home, including a pair of twins. Author of dozens of books. Sheila was originally a social anthropologist.


Jose Ramón de Miguel Sesmero specialized in Obstetrics and Surgery at La Paz hospital, in Madrid. Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Cantabria. Head of the department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University Hospital Marques de Valdecilla. Dedicated to materno-fetal medicine. Coordinator of SEGO, a group studying maternal mortality in Spain.


Sylvie Odent, MD, PhD. Professor of Medical genetic at the ‘Centre Hospitalier Universitaire’ in Rennes, France.
Author of about 100 articles in the medical literature, particularly in ‘American Journal of Medical Genetic’ and ‘American Journal of Human Genetic’. Member of ‘the European Society of Human Genetic’and of the ‘American Society of Human genetic’. General Secretary of ‘Le College des généticiens’.


Laura Uplinger is an international proponent of pre-birth parenting. Fluent in four languages, she bridges several cultures travelling between Europe and the Americas as a featured speaker for doulas, midwives and obstetricians. In Brazil, she has counselled pregnant women in favelas, mansions, and maternity wards. A student of the spiritual teachings of Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov, she dedicates her life to disclosing the relevance of imagination during pregnancy. She is the scriptwriter of an award winning video “A Gift for the Unborn Children”, and works in close collaboration with the Association for Prenatal & Perinatal Psychology and Health, www.birthpsychology.com


Heloisa Lessa has a master in nurse-midwifery. As a midwife-anthropologist studied childbirth and traditional midwifery in several ethnic groups of the Amazonian forest.
Practising home-birth midwife in Rio de Janeiro.
Coordinator of ReHuNa (network for the humanization of childbirth in Brazil)
Coordinator of the first randomized controlled trial on the effects of food supplementation on the rates of eclampsia (with the technical and scientific support of Primal Health Research Centre).
Organiser of conferences.


Michel Odent is the author of the first article in the medical literature applying the ‘Gate Control Theory of Pain’ to obstetrics (1975), of the first article about the initiation of lactation during the hour following birth (1977), and of the first article about the use of birthing pools (Lancet 1983). He introduced the concept of Primal Health Research (www.primalhealthresearch.com). Author of 12 books published in 22 languages.