SUMMERTOWN, Tenn. - Despite living on a commune in rural Tennessee, Ina May Gaskin has had the kind of career success most people only dream about.
A midwife who never formally studied nursing, Gaskin has helped to bring home birth and lay midwifery back from the brink of extinction in the U.S. An obstetrical maneuver she learned from the indigenous Mayans of Guatemala has made it into scientific journals and medical textbooks, and her insistence on the rights of a birthing mother empowered a generation of women to demand changes from doctors and hospitals.