OUR BOARD

Jennifer Braun

Board President: Jennifer lives in Longmont, Colorado, with her family. She became a midwife through a three-year apprenticeship. Jennifer has been a homebirth midwife for 25 years. She holds a B.A. in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, and she was president of the Colorado Midwives Association (CMA) from 1985 through 1992. Ms. Braun acted as a citizen lobbyist to pass legislation now called the Colorado Midwives Practice Act, and she was one of the four principal authors of the CMA Certification Program. She has been an educator since the late 1980s, training midwives from apprenticeship through licensure, and she taught at CU-Boulder in the Cell Biology and Developmental Biology laboratories. She was also the Western Science teacher at Southwest Acupuncture College-Boulder Campus, where she taught Anatomy and Physiology and General Biology. In addition to feeling passionate about the rights of disadvantaged women, she is an avid rider of a great big horse called Fabriani. Jennifer has been involved with IMA from the beginning, traveling to Afghanistan in 2004 to assess needs. She currently serves as Program Director as well as Board President.

Jennifer Barr

Board Treasurer: Jennifer lives in Boulder, Colorado, with her husband, two daughters and three cats. She is an intern midwife and craniosacral therapist who is studying to become a Certified Professional Midwife. She has volunteered and apprenticed all over the country. Between 1992 and 1994, she worked at Elizabeth House in Washington, D.C., a long-term shelter for homeless, pregnant, Spanish-speaking women. During that time, she also volunteered at the Washington Free Clinic doing HIV pre- and post-test counseling. In 1996, she attended Maternidad La Luz, a birth center in El Paso, Texas, as a midwifery student and apprentice. Currently, she sits on the board of the Colorado Midwives Association and the Pajwell Foundation, in addition to serving as board treasurer for IMA. Jennifer joined IMA while the organization was still in its inception, seeing an opportunity to work for maternal and child health in the developing world. “I believe strongly that health care is a right not a privilege. I uphold the midwifery model of care as the ideal, worldwide for pregnancy. I like to help the organization in whatever fashion is needed – from working on a fundraiser to organizing an evening public talk.” In her off time, Jennifer has been studying the Japanese martial art of Aikido for 14 years and holds the rank of third-degree black belt.

Lauri Hughes, CD (DONA), CLC

Board Member: Lauri is from Seattle, Washington, and after a 12-year stint in the San Francisco Bay Area, she now lives in Boulder, Colorado. She is the mother of three sons, ages 16 to 22, and a step-daughter, 16. Lauri is the current director of Birth Assistants of Boulder and has worked as a certified doula since 1998 and a lactation counselor since 2005. She is studying and apprenticing to become a Certified Professional Midwife. Lauri is a passionate advocate of women’s healthcare rights and has worked or volunteered in the areas of women’s health since the age of 14. She has been active with Boulder Valley Women’s Health Center, Nurse/Family Partnership & Exempla Lutheran Medical Center in Colorado. While living in California, she volunteered as a parenting project mentor, teaching parenting and life skills. In 2006 as part of Lauri’s midwifery training, she attended Casa de Nacimiento, a birth center in El Paso, Texas, where she learned clinical skills and worked with Spanish-speaking women. Before motherhood, doula work and midwifery, Lauri was an avid traveler and travel agent. From Egypt to India, Costa Rica to the North Pole, and many points in between, Lauri has visited more than 30 countries. She makes a point of using her passport at least once a year.

Jan Lapetino, CPM, RM

Secretary of the Board: Jan lives in Denver, Colorado. She is married and has two children, 27 and 21 years old. She is a Certified Professional Midwife and Registered Midwife who has been serving the homebirth community in the Denver metro area for 28 years. Jan is one of the founding members of the Colorado Midwives Association, former president of this group and current board member. Jan traveled to Afghanistan with IMA’s future program director in April 2004 to undertake a needs assessment for midwifery training programs. International Midwife Assistance officially was conceived after that visit. Jan continues to support IMA’s goals because there is such a great need for maternal/child healthcare all over the world. She hopes to return to the field, working in the developing world, when her Denver midwifery practice permits.

Sarah Truitt, MD

Board Member: Sarah lives in Boulder with her Alaskan husband, Zan. She practices as an obstetrician/gynecologist for Clinica Campesina Family Health services, a non-profit community health center for underserved and low-income people who live in Southeast Boulder, Broomfield and Adams Counties. Sarah completed medical school at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia in 1999. She then completed her residency training in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in 2003. Since then, Sarah has been in general ob/gyn practice for four years. She is fluent in Spanish and participated in IMA’s program in Afghanistan in 2006.  She is a Diplomat of the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology and has served for five years on various committees for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. She has an ongoing interest in health justice and enjoys finding opportunities to help women around the globe through serving as a member of IMA’s board. 

                                 
Claudia Wyrick, M.D.

Board Member: Claudia lives in Lakewood, Colorado, with her husband, Danny. She has three grown children, Chris, Lindsay and Clint and two grandchildren, Levi and Case. Claudia is a medical doctor who’s a practicing family physician and hospitalist in Denver, but she also holds advanced degrees in special education and fine arts. She became involved with efforts to found International Midwife Assistance while working on her Masters in Fine Arts and hopes some day to travel to the field to use her medical skills to help IMA’s clients. Having already volunteered at community free clinics, House of Hope women’s shelter and a health clinic in Nepal’s Dhading Valley, Claudia is community service minded. “I have always had a desire and felt a responsibility to work with those people who are underserved and who have not had the opportunities I have had in my life.” In addition to practicing as a physician, Claudia is a writer. She has published several poems and is working on a novel.