What is BirthLink?

We are a birthing services member based organization that refers, parents free of charge, to local Chicago area providers. These providers cover the time period of preconception through birth and beyond. Our mission includes educating parents about birth options for the childbearing years. The choices parents make about their birth experiences can have a lifelong impact on parenthood, their children and the larger community.

BirthLink was founded in 1996 by Jo Anne Lindberg. Since then it has provided thousands of referrals to services that support and guide parents' efforts to build strong, healthy families. BirthLink members subscribe to the values of parents' rights including undisturbed nonintervention-oriented childbirth, breast feeding and uninterrupted immediate infant bonding.

Our organization is supported through membership. Both parents and providers are members of BirthLink. Through creating a community of service providers connecting with clients, BirthLink seeks to empower parents to make safer more satisfying choices.

About the Founder.

Jo Anne LindbergJo Anne Lindberg founded BirthLink after recognizing a critical need for parent education regarding birthing options. Giving birth at home was one of the most empowering experiences of her life. After many years as a teacher and small business owner she decided she would follow her heart and create a business that would have a positive impact on families. She noticed that parents are very open to learning new ideas when they are expecting a child.

She enjoys her private consults. As a birth advocate she helps parents research their options, save time and make truly informed decisions. This often leads to choosing a less intervention oriented path. After more than ten years doing this work she has a great deal of knowledge and wisdom to share.

As a shiatsu practitioner in private practice she works with clients who want to improve the quality of their lives on many levels. Her favorite clients are adolescents who are struggling with cutting and eating challenges. Clients range in age from ten years to eighty. She is certified by the American Organization for Bodywork Therapies of Asia and a graduate of the Ohashiatsu program. Her practice is located in Evanston.

She says, “Parents can experience the full power of creation. They can create a birth experience that supports birth as a natural physiological process as opposed to having many routine medical procedures. This does require trust in the birth process and a woman’s body. Our own birth’s are one of the most important events in our life. Birth is a body, mind and spirit process. Birth is as safe as life gets.

May you all have safer more satisfying birth experiences!”

Find out how you can benefit from a birth consult with Jo Anne Lindberg

About the Advsory Board

BirthLink is a labor of love. Many people have donated their time and talents to our organization. They have been inspired by the belief that birth is a women's rights issue. We have learned that birth is a much larger than just a few women having babies. It is about a woman's place in the society in which they live. It is about having a voice and being able to have choices that preserve health and well being of body, mind and spirit. It is about honoring women and children. Many board members have not even had children. Some have chosen the childless path. They still feel so strongly about the birthing process that they are willing to give of themselves by volunteering for BirthLink. It is with the deepest gratitude that we say thank you to all who have made BirthLink what it is today.
Hanna Maximova

Hannah Maximova
Hannah has been involved in the alternative birth arena for over a decade as a birth photographer, doula and birth advocate. Her gift to BirthLink is her work as creative director and advisory board member. She has her BFA in fine art photography from the University of Arizona and works in film, photography and graphic design. She feels that it has been a great honor to assist BirthLink in giving information to thousands of parents who want safer, more comfortable and family bonding births. She misses Chicago as she currently resides in Glendale, California. Find a Provider: Birth Photographer
 
Patricia Berg-Drazin Patricia Berg-Drazin, IBCLC, RLC
Patricia Berg-Drazin got involved with the lactation after the birth of her first son in 1982. As an active La Leche League Leader she repeatedly heard stories from mothers who did not get the support they needed nor accurate information in order to make an informed decisions about care for themselves or their children. This led Ms. Berg-Drazin to become board certified as a lactation consultant. In her role as a board certified lactation consultant she is in a position to act as a liaison between families and health care professions and share with both research based information on which decisions can be made. Find a Provider: Breastfeeding Support
 
Elaine Stocker Elaine Stocker, DN
Elaine Stocker, DN has been practicing for over twenty five years and established Healing Hands Holistic Health Center in 1979. Elaine is a licensed Doctor of Naprapathy (Illinois and New Mexico) from Chicago National College of Naprapathy and is also a senior cranial-sacral practitioner. Her gentle, subtle and noninvasive approach is ideal for both adults and her pediatric clients. She treats mothers (pre- and postpartum and through their lives) and children. Elaine says, "This work is my passion and joy."

Prior to pursuing her present path, Elaine was a University of Chicago trained psychologist for the State of Illinois specializing in developmentally and mentally delayed children. Dr. Stocker is a founding member of Chicago's Holistic Pediatric Association and participates in a Pediatric Cranial Study group. Elaine designed a pediatric treatment table in her child-friendly office and treatment room with toys, video and rocking chair. Find a Provider: Gentle Cranial Manipulation, Naprapaths, Pediatric Holistic Care
 
Penny Shelton MD MPH Penny Shelton MD MPH
Her orientation will always be that of serving from the heart. When women are not welcome or allowed access to a career path, the not so subtle messages do harm to women everywhere. Having wanted to be a doctor for a long time, she finally celebrated getting admitted to med school and starting at 37 years of age. During med school she was introduced to homebirthing at a time when she was overwhelmingly dismayed by all of the birth interventions and c-sections in the hospital training she was receiving, she immediately knew that natural birth was an area where her gifts could be fully utilized. When she finished residency she practiced in a full time capacity as a family practitioner, attending the deliveries of babies at home from 1999 until 2003 in the Chicago area. It was an intense, immensely rewarding and fulfilling time.

She left the practice, to move to Athens, Ohio to marry her husband who is a tenured professor of journalism at Ohio University. Her work is still very rewarding. She continues to be connected to homebirthing by caring for the families and babies before and after births, but is no longer choosing to attend deliveries. There is a strong homebirthing/breastfeeding/attachment parenting contingent. She is honored to continue to be a part of the Birthlink Board, and fully supports the wonderful activities of the members.
 
Alissa Catalan

Alissa Catalan - DONA CD
Alissa is a mom and does computer technical support, leads Pink Kit workshops and Birthing From Within style prenatal groups in both English and Spanish. She serves as a board member of BirthLink and is the Chair of Operations of NorthEastern Illinois Doula Association (NEIDA). "BirthLink is an invaluable resource for local networking and support, and I am glad to be part of the organization, continuing to assist with the web site and general technical issues." Find a Provider: Birth Instructors
 
Nikki Demetriou Nikki Demetriou CNM, FNP
Nikki feels indebted to JoAnne Lindberg, and Birthlink, in so many ways. After the loss of her first child, JoAnne nurtured her with shiatsu and helped her to answer her calling to midwifery. Jo Anne supported her midwifery path from its inception and she is grateful to be a member of the board of BirthLink. She is a native of Chicago and graduated from both high school and undergrad in Evanston. She came to appreciate the many ways that a community of women can support each other while serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in The Gambia, West Africa. She traded in her Yankee roots and fell in love with southern hospitality in Nashville, whilecompleting training as a Registered Nurse, Certified Nurse Midwife and Family NursePractitioner.

Her career has come full circle now that she practices in Hyden, Kentucky, at the Frontier Nursing Service, the birthplace of nurse-midwifery in America. She hopes to pursue a doctorate in medical anthropology. She believes that the experience of childbirth gives women tools that are essential to claim their feminine power, and that midwives must safeguard this sacred experience of birth and allow women to receive this gift, in her own way. Peace on earth does begin with gentle birth.

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