Saraswathi Vedam ‘85

90 Outstanding Yale Nurses Recipient

Class of 1985

Associate professor of midwifery at the University of British Columbia, Saraswathi Vedam, RN, MSN, FACNM, was director of the Division of Midwifery from 2007 to 2012. She has been active in setting national and international policy on home birth and midwifery education and regulation, providing expert consultations in Hungary, Mexico, Chile, China, Canada, and the United States.

Saraswathi was convener and chair of the historic Home Birth Consensus Summits (2011 and 2013), which convened 68 multidisciplinary leaders to discuss and develop a common-ground agenda for ensuring access and safety across birth settings in the United States. Her scholarly work includes development of the first U.S. registry of home birth perinatal data, and a national mixed-methods study of maternity care providers attitudes toward planned home birth.

In recognition of her contributions to evidence-based maternity care, she was awarded an honorary doctorate of science by Amherst College.

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