2025 Maternal Child Health Conference Speaker Bios

Diana Paul, Midwife & Filmmaker

Diana Paul is the founder of Love Delivers, World Birth Hub, The Motherbaby International Film Festival and the Birth Revolution.  She  produced and directed:  BIRTH DAY; MISS MARGARET; FIVE COUNTRIES, SIX BIRTHS, SEVEN BABIES and HOMEBIRTH.

All three of Diana's children were born at home after which she attended a midwifery school and moved to Massachusetts where she was able to practice as a traditional midwife...legally. Born on the 4th of July, Diana counts herself related in spirit if not by DNA to the revolutionaries Alice Paul (author of the ERA) and Captain John Paul (later Jones) of "I have not yet begun to fight" fame.  

Maddy Oden, Doula & Activist
Chairperson, The Tatia Oden French Memorial Foundation

Born and raised in NY, Maddie moved to California in 1964. An activist at heart, she has championed local and national issues from Civil Rights to education to maternal health. The mother of three children and grandmother to eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

In 2001, Maddie’s 32-year-old daughter, Tatia, was pregnant with her first child. She had been married only one year, just received her PhD in Psychology and was finishing her pre-med courses and preparing for both medical school and the birth of her first child.

She was induced with Cytotec in a very prominent East Bay hospital. Ten hours after being induced, both my daughter and granddaughter, Zorah Allie Mae were dead.  Since that time, she started a non-profit organization, The Tatia Oden French Memorial Foundation, that’s sole purpose is to educate women on pregnancy and birth. The primary areas of focus are the off-label use of drugs, informed consent and maternal mortality. We give presentations at schools, churches, conferences and anywhere there are women of childbearing age. We currently have an open petition to the FDA with over 3,000 both on and offline, regarding Cytotec inductions. Please visit our website at www.tatia.org

For more information on Cytotec, or misoprostol, search online.

Liz Morris, Co-Director
Center for WorkLife Law, University of California College of the Law, San Francisco

Liz Morris (she/her) is the Co-Director of WorkLife Law, a legal advocacy organization advances gender and racial justice in the workplace and education. Liz’s advocacy builds legal rights for pregnant and lactating people and family caregivers struggling to take care of their loved ones while making ends meet. Liz has trained thousands of healthcare providers and counseled hundreds of workers on workplace accommodations and leave for pregnancy, childbirth and lactation.  She was also a national leader in the passage and implementation of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and PUMP Act, two new federal laws that significantly impact our patients' health, and which she will be talking about with us today.   

Jeremy Pasternak, Attorney

Jeremy Pasternak has been representing employees for nearly thirty years, first in Los Angeles, and since 2001, in San Francisco. He opened his own firm in San Francisco in 2005.  The firm and its three attorneys represent all manner of employees, from entry-level employees to the C-Suite.  This includes matters against private institutions as well as the public sector.

Throughout his career, Mr. Pasternak has represented female employees addressing the contexts in which they often difficulty with their employers, such as pregnancy leave, pumping accommodations, and the like. Mr. Pasternak graduated from Santa Clara University School of Law in 1995.  He lives in San Francisco with his wife, who is also a plaintiffs’ lawyer.  They have two children and are very nearly empty-nesters.

Douglas Jimenez, MD
Family Medicine, Sutter Health

Douglas Jimenez, M.D., is a board-certified family physician who has delivered comprehensive care in Santa Rosa, California since 1999. He received his medical degree from the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, then completed his family medicine residency and an obstetrics and gynecology fellowship at the Santa Rosa Family Medicine Residency. Since 2002, Dr. Jimenez has practiced at Santa Rosa Community Health as a family physician who delivers full spectrum care for an underserved population and has attended over 3,000 births. He is a Full Clinical Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at UCSF, actively involved in teaching and promoting family-centered maternity care, consistent with the broad, patient-centered scope of family medicine.

Rosanne Gephart, MSN, CNM, NP, PHN, IBCLC
President, Better Beginnings

Rosanne Gephart has worked in maternal child health since 1976 as a labor and delivery nurse, a certified nurse-midwife, a nurse practitioner, and a board-certified lactation consultant (IBCLC). Rosanne is best known for founding With Child Breastfeeding Support Services, the Women's Health and Birth Center, and the nonprofit, Better Beginnings. With nearly five decades of experience, she has dedicated her career to supporting mothers and babies through education, safe and sensitive births at home, birth centers and hospitals, and to improving the breastfeeding and postpartum experience of all families. She has served in leadership roles for national organizations and has participated in the training of doctors, midwives, nurses, doulas and lactation professionals. She earned her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Nursing from the University of California, San Francisco.