Françoise Barbira Freedman
Contents
Biographical Information
"Founder and Director of Birthlight, Françoise Barbira Freedman is a medical anthropologist at the University of Cambridge, where she does research and teaches as an affiliated lecturer in the Department of Social Anthropology.
After spending long periods of fieldwork in the Peruvian Amazon, including two pregnancies and stays with her young family, she was inspired to share the gentle approach to parenting of her Amazonian hosts with friends in the UK. As a trained yoga teacher and therapist, Françoise used the idiom of yoga to create an original programme of movements and nurturing relaxation for mothers to be and new mothers with their babies.
"Her background of competition swimming and as a swimming instructor also led inspired her to develop Infant Aquatics and Aqua Yoga original programmes. All these activities took place informally in Cambridge around Françoise’s four children and friends of friends until demand grew and the time came to produce books and videos as more people became inspired by her original but effective practices with demand for training by both parents and professionals. This instigated the development of a Birthlight training structure and the creation of training courses offered to Yoga Therapists at the Yoga Biomedical Trust in London.
"In 1998, ten years after the first informal Cambridge classes, Birthlight was set up as a registered charity with an accompanying company Birthlight Training Limited. Birthlight courses have grown exponentially from year to year since 2001 and now has over 1500 certified instructors in four major teaching areas, mainly in the UK but increasingly abroad. Françoise is a Board member and adviser of the European Yoga Federation Council.
"An expert in her field, Françoise is a speaker at International Conferences. Françoise’s books have now been translated into 11 languages, she has also written articles for numerous yoga journals and pregnancy / baby magazines.
"Françoise is a registered SYT teacher with Yoga Alliance UK. This accreditation demonstrates excellent standards as set by Yoga Alliance UK. Françoise has 4 grown-up children, all of whom have been a source of experimentation for new Birthlight techniques over the years! Françoise is a founder Director of Ampika and its Research Director."[1]
