Francoise Barbira Freedman, PhD, is a medical anthropologist at Cambridge University, England. Her pioneering interest in pregnancy, childbirth, and beyond stems from her earliest studies in the Amazon, where she was inspired by the energetic, light-hearted, and gentle mothering of the Peruvian Amazonian women. An adept of yoga, she has used both her life experience as a mother of four and her academic training and research to develop her original approach to antenatal and postnatal holistic care. Francoise has been a trainer for the UK-based Yoga Biomedical Trust's Yoga Therapist Diploma since 1994. She is a member of the Board of Yoga Therapists, which is developing professional standards for yoga therapy and guidelines for integration into UK National Health Service Trusts, and she also lectures at midwifery schools. In 1990 Francoise founded the charity Birthlight, which is dedicated to promoting a sensitive approach to pregnancy, birth, and babies through innovative applications of yoga and practical teachings across cultures. Birthlight offers classes in prenatal yoga, postnatal yoga, well-woman yoga, yoga with babies, and aquayoga for mothers and babies, as well as training and certification courses in these subjects. The charity now has teachers and supporters in countries across Europe, North America, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, and the South Pacific.
