Renaissance Midwifery

Our Staff

Linda 'Lynn' Arnold Milligan, LM

- Midwife and Educator

Linda Arnold comes home to California to serve the women of Oakland and of the greater San Fransisco Bay Area. After 30 years providing midwifery and educational services internationally, Linda Arnold returns to her first love, birth at home.

Since 1975 Linda has delivered over 3,000 babies as a primary care midwife and she has been the supervising midwife at over 5,000 births. As the director of Casa de Nacimiento, a free standing birth center, Linda has been directly responsible for over 13,000 deliveries. Since 1985, Linda has taught didactic and clinical midwifery to more than 500 students from around the world.

Linda apprenticed for three years with a doctor in Southern California doing homebirths in a busy practice that included hospital and clinic births too. Linda established a thriving homebirth practice in Idaho before founding Casa de Nacimiento in 1985. Linda moved to El Paso, Texas to serve the birthing community there by providing safe affordable maternity care and to give midwifery students the clinical opportunity to learn the science and art of midwifery.

Linda is the author of midwifery curricula approved by the state of Texas, has served on various midwifery boards, and is a consultant to midwifery programs internationally.

Linda is the mother of six children and the grandmother of eight.

Linda Arnold is licensed to practice midwifery in California, New Mexico, Texas, and Florida.

Linda Arnold is a contributing author of

Birth Centres: A Social Model for Maternity Care.

Read her chapter on the history of Casa de Nacimiento.

Kaye Jarrett - Apprentice Midwife and Certified Medical Assistant

Kaye Jarrett

is an apprentice midwife and certified medical assistant with Renaissance Midwifery. Kaye is currently enrolled at Midwives College of Utah working toward a degree in midwifery. In April 2007 she completed an internship at Casa de Nacimiento in El Paso, Texas and in February 2009 she was welcomed back to serve clients and interns as a clinical resident.

Kaye coordinates Baby Nursing and brings to Renaissance Midwifery nearly a decade of caring for mothers and their families, including attendance at over 250 births. Kaye has cared for women in a high volume OB-GYN practice, in hospital, birth center, and at home.

Kaye is the mother of 9 year old Moira and baby Griffin, each born at home surrounded by family and friends and with midwives in attendance.

Gary Wade McCrea - Masseur to Midwives

Gary Wade McCrea is a masseur to midwives. He began his massage training in 1968 in the West Catholic Sensitivity Training Program at West Philadelphia Catholic High School in Pennsylvania, and in 1971 continued his study of Swedish massage at the Lynn School of Massage in Lynn, Massachusetts, completing his formal program in 1972.

Gary says his early home training is still the best training he has ever received. Gary credits his mother, noted anesthesiologist Daisy McCrea, for his caring, awareness, attention to fine detail, and especially for his ability to understand and meet the need for respite and rejuvenation among mothers and health care providers themselves.

Gary Wade McCrea has been practicing massage for nearly 40 years, the last 15 years focusing on the needs of midwives and birthing women.

Gary is the father of two daughters, Mary, 40, and Lilah, 20. He lives in Oakland, California with three cats.

Susan Claypool - Midwife and Educator

Susan Claypool is the director of Renaissance Midwifery. A midwife and educator, Susan has been attending women in childbirth at home, hospital, and birth center since 1982.

Susan has caught babies presenting head first, face first, butt first, feet first, sunny-side-up, and two at a time. The youngest woman Susan has delivered was 13 and the oldest 43.

Susan has helped draft model midwifery legislation for California and served as legislative chair for the California Association of Midwives. In 1998 she successfully challenged the California midwifery license.

Susan has lectured on midwifery at UCSF Medical School, Stanford University School of Medicine, California State University, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara, California Institute for Integral Studies, New College of California, Casa de Nacimiento, and Pacific School of Herbal Medicine.

Susan has appeared on the cover of the East Bay Guardian and her work has been featured on CNN. She has been a guest on the television show People Are Talking, and her radio appearances include KQED and NPR.

Susan studied didactic midwifery with Elizabeth Davis and clinical midwifery with Shari Daniels, Linda Arnold, and Valerie El Halta.

Susan is the mother of two, Alexis Klohe, 28, and Tucker Klohe, 22, each born surrounded by family and friends and with midwives in attendance.

Adam Seller - Clinical Herbalist and Educator

Adam Seller is the director of The Pacific School of Herbal Medicine,

and he currently teaches physiology and materia medica at the Southwest School of Botanical Medicine. Adam is an herbalist of Hungarian-American descent with twenty-seven years experience providing health care professionally, twenty-five of them practicing herbal medicine, working as a client advocate, wildcrafting, making medicines, teaching people about plants outdoors and community health organizing. Adam is a third generation healthcare practitioner.

Adam still makes house calls. His clinical work emphasizes a constitutional approach based in western physiology within a client centered harm reduction model of care. His long standing association with public health clinics has brought public health perspectives to the field of herbal medicine through his work as a teacher, therapist and organizer.

Adam subscribes to the radical notion that women are people.

Adam has been a visiting lecturer of Physiology at The Academy of Chinese Culture and Health Sciences and has been on staff at the Southwest School of Botanical Medicine. He has practiced at the Common Ground Health Clinic in New Orleans. He has taught at UC Berkeley, UCSF Medical School, Harm Reduction Coalition, Department of Public Health in San Francisco, Breitenbush Herb Retreat, New College of California, the S.F. Public School district, Northwest Herbal Faire, Ohlone Center of Herbal Studies, the Ecology Center, San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners, Scarlet Sage Herb Company, the Berkeley Free Clinic, the Rainbow Grocery Collective, Strybing Arboretum and in wild places up and down the west coast.

Adam has published in Nosh, Mudflap,3 Dollar Bill, Mother Jones, Time, Newsweek, and E Magazine. His work has been featured in the the Bay Guardian and 7x7 as well as in the films No Zone and The Secret Garden.

Adam studied herbal medicine at the Southwest School of Botanical Medicine with Michael Moore, and with Jane Bothwell, Rosemary Gladstar and Cascade Andersen-Geller. The greater part of his unofficial education came through working closely with community and public health workers in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Susan@

RenaissanceMidwifery.com

510. 436. 4815