Mary KroegerMary Kroeger has been a nurse-midwife for twenty-three years. In the United States, she has practiced full-scope midwifery in all settings: home, birth center and hospital. Her additional expertise in lactation management has been acquired through he midwifery practice, as a member of the clinical faculty at Wellstart International in San Diego and as senior technical staff with LINKAGES, a global breastfeeding promotion project based in Washington DC. Mary's activities and advocacy for a holistic model of maternity care spans many worlds. She maintains active membership in both the American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM) as well as the Midwives Association of North America (MANA) the latter whose constituency are largely homebirth-oriented care providers. She is the current Co-coordinator of the World Alliance of Breastfeeding Action (WABA) Health Care Practices Task Force and chairs the International Committee of the Coalition to Improve Maternity Services (CIMS). Since 1983, Mary has lived and worked eight years overseas in Belize, Somalia, Swaziland, Kazakhstan, and Indonesia serving as a specialist in safe motherhood, child survival and breastfeeding. She has also consulted widely for global health organizations including UNICEF, WHO, World Bank, United States Agency for International Development and Save the Children/US. This work has taken her to over twenty countries on four continents and has found her frequently a counterpart with program planners, educators and policy makers in ministries of health, with international non-governmental organizations, and with traditional village midwife groups where she has tried to bridge the gap between developing country realities and western norms and standards that are inevitably introduced with development work. In the last five years, Kroeger's work has increasingly included technical assistance to countries in the throes of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, providing guidance in reduction in transmission of HIV from mother-to-child during pregnancy, childbirth and infant feeding. Mary is a mother of three grown children, one stepson, and a granddaughter. She and her husband, Robert, live in Takoma Park, Maryland. Read More Read Less