Natalya Lukin
Certified Professional Midwife (CPM)
Licensed Midwife (LM)
I have attended hundreds of births in very diverse locations, from big cities to isolated villages in the U.S., Mexico, and even Scotland. My philosophy is that birth is powerful, challenging, beautiful, transformative, and fundamentally a normal, healthy function of the human body. I believe that all woman and birthing persons have the right to give birth in safety, dignity, and power.
I grew up in and around San Francisco as part of a multilingual, immigrant family. I owe my love of nature and science to my mother– an animal lover– and my paternal grandmother– a research physiologist. My first introduction to midwifery came in the fourth grade when my semi-feral cat went into labor on my lap. As an undergraduate at UC Santa Cruz, I majored in Environmental Studies, but along the way Women’s Studies courses and exposure to homebirth and social justice movements sparked a passion for women’s health. Then in 1991 a dear friend invited me to her birth at UCSF and, although she achieved her goal of an unmedicated birth, I found myself very frustrated with how she and her baby were treated and the medical approach to birth. After completing my degree in Environmental Studies: Agroecology, I made the choice to give up my planned summer internship at the UCSC Farm in order to take care of a dying family member at home. In the end, being a participant in both of these profound life experiences in such a short span of time changed the direction of my life and called me to midwifery.
My midwifery education began in 1993 and included extensive didactic training and apprenticeship with homebirth midwives in the San Francisco Bay Area, at Maternidad La Luz, (a freestanding birth center and midwifery school in El Paso, Texas), as well as, with traditional midwives in Mexico. I earned my CPM credential from the North American Registry of Midwives in 1999 and my midwife license (LM) from the Medical Board of California in 2008.
In between I became a mother myself, giving birth to my son at home in a waterbirth tub with a midwife’s help.
I am honored to serve all growing families as an affirming health care provider– regardless of age, race, ethnicity, religion, immigration status, socioeconomic background, marital status/single-hood, weight, sexual orientation or gender expression. When not catching babies, I can be found walking in nature with my son, researching family trees, and tending my roses and vegetable garden.
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