Jeannine Parvati Baker (June 1, 1949 - December 1, 2005) was a Yogini, midwife, herbalist, published author, and poet. She was also an international activist on the matters of homebirth, unassisted childbirth and newborn rights issues.
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Born in North Hollywood, California, to a Jewish mother and Native American father, Jeannine Parvati Baker migrated to the San Francisco Bay Area and Sebastopol areas in the late 1960s. She attended Sonoma State University. She was an early contributor to the fields of natural health and healing, studying yoga asana and meditation. Parvati Baker chose to give birth to all of her children without the use of drugs, which she discusses in her early writings.
Parvati Baker's first book, Prenatal Yoga & Natural Childbirth, was the first text in the Western world on the subject, written during her studies with ashtanga yogi Baba Hari Dass from whom she received the name Parvati. In the Hindu myth, Parvati invented her baby from the simple gifts of nature – flowers, herbs, the soil, her saliva, sweat, and some other things. In the following years, other authors such as yogini Geeta Iyengar and Janet Balaskas expanded the Prenatal Yoga realm with texts which further asserted benefits of yoga for healthy pregnancy and childbirth preparation, eventually resulting in one of the most popularized trends for modern women.
Parvati Baker followed this work with Hygieia: A Woman's Herbal as her master's thesis in psychology at San Francisco State University, and later Conscious Conception: Elemental Journey through the Labyrinth of Sexuality.
Parvati Baker practiced as a spiritual midwife in Sonoma County, California for over ten years, before moving to rural southern Utah where she continued her practice and taught Prenatal Yoga while raising a family. She founded Hygieia College, a mentorship program, through which she matriculated over 500 students both locally and internationally.
A keynote speaker at many professional herbalism and midwifery conferences, and a newborn rights activist working to eradicate infant/child circumcision (both male and female), Parvati Baker was awarded a Lifetime Achievement recognition by the International Symposium on Genital Integrity.
A self-described "wordsmith", she coined the popular word freebirth to describe unassisted chilbirth in a positive mode, and the lesser known, phenomenological Birthkeeper to describe the spiritual midwife in a traditional shamanic or yogini role.
Parvati Baker died December 1, 2005, aged 56, after a two-year battle with Hepatitis C in Utah.