I count my blessings that Suzanne Arms has been in my life, guiding me as a mother and mentoring me as a professional since 1980. She’s been instrumental in shifting how birth and mother-baby-family care happens in this country, for those interested in transformation; and her broad perspective has helped so many to find their instinctual wisdom. Suzanne is my rock and keeps inspiring my work.
Janine Maitri – Founder/Director Sierra Childbirth Institute
DONA certified birth & postpartum doula, childbirth educator, DONA doula trainer, counselor, doula mentor, and lecturer. Founded SF Bay Area’s Peninsula Birth Connection,
Dear Suzanne, I’ve been a maternal-newborn nurse and lactation consultant for over 20 years. In the 80’s, I went back to school to get my bachelors degree and my anthropology professor introduced us to your book, Immaculate Deception. I devoured it and it transformed my whole view of women and birth. It was as if I had landed on a new planet. The lens through which I viewed women , infants and birth had been turned around; and it all resonated deeply with me. I felt like I had found my home!
Your work informs my work every day in the hospital, where every day I see how we medicalize and interfere with a normal cascade of mother-infant behaviors. Even though I’ve never met you in person, I consider you a powerful mentor in my life. Your wisdom has greatly informed my own shifts and gives me courage to keep standing up for what is right for women and infants.
Ginny Combs Massachusetts MSN, RN, IBCLC
Director of Nursing, Boston Medical Center’s Postpartum Unit, Lactation
and The Baby Cafe at Codman Square Health Center
Dear Suzanne,
I was reading the first edition of The University of California, Berkeley Wellness Guide recently and remembering the huge contribution you made to the project. We used to call your gift ‘the voice.’ It was the way you helped us frame the issues and speak personally to the reader, so that the Guide became compelling and intimate. I knew, as Editor-in-Chief for 7 years, that this was one of the principal reasons for the Guide’s success, and this has since been born out by official evaluation.
Your brilliant conceptual thinking and deep understanding of human nature became an integral part of the Guide, but that’s not all. Your skills and insight as a photographer also made their mark. The Guide had 9 English editions, plus several in Spanish and Chinese, and has been read by nearly 10 million Californians. Quite an achievement! It changed the face of health education in America, in no small measure because of you!
Your first published books, A Season to Be Born, and your second, Immaculate Deception, opened up a whole new world to Inke and me 30 years ago, when she was pregnant with Daniel, and I know your later publications have inspired hundreds of thousands of people.
Thank you, again, for helping so many of us along the way.
With love and deep respect,
Dr. Michael Schwab, Public Health Physician, London, England
Editor-in-Chief of the California Wellness Guide
Suzanne Arms tells the truth, and she does it with great clarity and compassion. (Her) vision, put forth so compellingly can help midwife this system right now. Like all good birth attendants, Suzanne understands the nature and power of support, understanding, and compassion. Those qualities help a woman, and even a health care system, to let go and allow the new creation to emerge.
Christiane Northrup, MD, Ob/Gyn
Author of Women’s Bodies: Women’s Wisdom
Regarding the Sacred Circles Suzanne Arms leads:
Suzanne Arms, our beloved pioneer in childbirth choices, is now facilitating Sacred Circles to help us remember what matters most. Our wise, delightful elder now, she understands the unique support that birth professionals and families need. Suzanne’s sacred circles create a much needed slowing down, a shared reverence, to unify and strengthen our common dedication to serve and stay inspired.
Roxanne Cummings CNM
Homebirth Midwifery, Mindfulness Birth and Parenting Educator
Once again, Suzanne Arms brought us together – as birthkeepers and birthworkers – from 3 generations, inspiring us to keep doing what we do best and what we know is right. Suzanne has a special talent for nurturing others, and the sacred circle fed our souls and reminded us of the sacredness of our work. In that context, she connected us to so many issues of importance in the world today, and reminded us of the critical importance of birth and the primal period to the future of humanity.
Kate Bowland CNM
Direct Entry and Certified Nurse-Midwife attending 1000+ home births over 4 decades
From a client’s letter to Suzanne regarding her birth at the freestanding birth center – The Birth Place – and Resource center that Suzanne co-founded in in Palo Alto, California, in 1978.
A walk down memory lane, for sure. I went to the Birth Place and poured through the forms submitted by the OB’s in the area that you all had compiled, and from those I made my informed choice. My first event at the Birth Place was the viewing of your film Five Women Five Births. To say I was stunned by it would be an understatement.
I look back now seeing myself in my cute little preppy outfit sitting amongst the mostly counter-culture women and know now what I knew then. I was a woman who cared about myself and my child, and we all had the same thing in common. In your film I saw naked birthing women. I had never seen a pregnant woman undressed before. I was uncomfortable with the images, but at a very basic level I understood that it was the beginning for me. I had a long way to go.
Both of my births were unmedicated. I knew without a doubt that I was doing the right thing. I was, and am, grateful to you for the pioneering work you’ve done in this field and the advocacy for birthing process.
I’m now approaching 70 and have grandchildren and more to come. I’ve seen the advancements that have been made in the field and some things I question. I’ve lent my copy of your book Immaculate Deception to younger women and talked about the critical role you played in giving them the experience that they currently enjoy and the services they take for granted…doulas and midwives, etc.
Thank you for everything, Suzanne, you’ve done with your life to make life better for women. You made mine better. I’m grateful.
Love,
Joann Holder
Suzanne, You’ve always had the knack of pouring so much information and heart into a short bit of time, and this 22-minute interview with you is a perfect example of that. I sometimes think I know this stuff, or at least a lot of it, but I ALWAYS learn something significant and wonderful (in the true sense of that word) every time you speak or write.
Linda McNeil, retired teacher
Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us…it’s been not easy, though I am waking and your words of wisdom are blessings in the right moment for me.
Glyol Panbecchi – Certified birth doula and educator