The David B. Cheek, M.D. Memorial Lecture
                                             on Psychosomatic Obstetrics
 

The Directors of APPPAH created the David B. Cheek Memorial Lecture in 1997 to honor an esteemed colleague and to assure that David and his work will be long remembered. Dr. Cheek who died in Santa Barbara, California in June 1996 at the age of 84, was a pioneering practitioner and researcher who illuminated the realities of infant consciousness in both prenatal and neonatal life, and invented new approaches to infertility, premature birth, and birth trauma. David was a much-loved and loyal member of APPPAH, served on the Board of Directors for five years, and was a popular speaker at congresses. 

David spent forty years caring for pregnant women and teaching a rapid form of hypnosis to clients, physicians, psychologists, and dentists in the United States and abroad. He served as the 6th President of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis, and published fifty papers and books that remain milestones in pre- and perinatal psychology and health. In his life and writings, he demonstrated the importance of a psychological approach to the full range of problems associated with reproduction and childbirth. 

                                                               Seminal Works of David Cheek In Birth Psychology

The following books and articles are lifted out of Dr. Cheek's voluminous bibliography because of their profound contribution of clinical evidence to the field of prenatal and perinatal psychology and health:

1965  Some newer understandings of dreams in relation to threatened abortion and premature labor Pacific Medicine and Surgery, 73, 379-384.

1968  Cheek, D.B. & LeCron, L.M., Clinical Hypnotherapy. Boston: Allyn-Bacon Co.

1969  Significance of dreams in initiating premature labor, American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 12, 5-15.

1974  Initial head and shoulder movements appearing with age-regression in hypnosis to birth, American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 16(4), 261-266.

1975  Maladjustment patters apparently related to imprinting at birth, American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 18(2), 75-82.

1986  Prenatal and perinatal imprints: Apparent prenatal consciousness as revealed by hypnosis, Pre- and Perinatal Psychology, 1(2), 97-110.

1988  Rossi, E. L. & Cheek, D. B., Mind-Body Therapy. New York: W.W. Norton.

1992  Are telepathy, clairvoyance and "hearing" possible in utero? Suggestive evidence as revealed during hypnotic age-regression studies of prenatal memory, Pre- and Perinatal Psychology Journal,
7(2), 125-137.

1994  Hypnosis: The Application of Ideomotor Techniques. Boston: Allyn & Bacon

1995  Early use of psychotherapy in prevention of preterm labor: The application of hypnosis and ideomotor techniques with women carrying twin pregnancies, Pre- and Perinatal Psychology Journal, 10(1), 5-19.

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                                         The Cheek Memorial Lecturers
                                           
                                                                                       (Latest on Top)

                                                                            2007 Dr. Bethany M. Hays
                                                                        2005  The Doctors Van de Carr
                                                                              2003  Dr. Eva Gundberg
                                                                                2001  Dr. Leo Sorger
                                                                      1999  Dr. Lewis E. Mehl-Madrona
                                                                           1997  Dr. Marshall H. Klaus

                             NOTE: Audiotapes of all Cheek Memorial Lectures are available from Gold Key Recordings
                          

                                                    2007 Dr. Bethany M. Hays, M.D., FACOG

 

Education:  BA, Wellesley College, MD, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX. Residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology, Baylor College, Houston, TX. Fellowship in Perinatology, Baylor College, Houston, TX. Graduate, Applied Functional Medicine in Clinical Practice course (AFMCP), Institute for Functional Medicine, Gig Harbor, WA; Teacher - Functional Endocrinology, AFMCP, nationwide.

 

Dr. Hays has practiced obstetrics and gynecology, and now Functional Medicine, over a career lasting 32 years. In describing the focus of her career at present, she said:

“I went into medicine to help people be healthier, but what I found in medicine was a system that was as sick as the people it was treating. Ultimately I realized that my calling was to heal the system as well as the patients. I have three areas that I feel are important enough to put my time, energy and monetary resources into. They are: creating a model for integrative care that treats illness upstream before it requires drugs and surgery; finding better ways to train physicians, and providing better end of life care, essentially, learning to die better.”

Her practice includes: comprehensive women’s health care, Functional Medicine, non-surgical gynecology and mind-body medicine. She is a co-founder and Medical Director of True North: A Center for Health and Healing in Falmouth, Maine.

                                                2005  F. Rene Van de Carr, M.D. and Kristin Van de Carr, Ph.D

Dr Rene Van de Carr, MD, recently retired from a busy ob/gyn practice in Hayward, California, is a Fellow of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and a newly elected member of the Board of APPPAH. He was a friend and colleague of David Cheek.

Rene is known around the world as the “Grandfather” of programs of prenatal stimulation because after the establishment of his own program called "Prenatal University" in the 1970s, professionals from Japan, Thailand, Venezuela, and Spain found their way to his door in Northern California for advice and inspiration. In the development of his own ideas and practices, Rene was, of course, not alone. He had the constant feedback of his clients, the total support of his wife, psychologist Kristin Van de Carr, Ph.D., and the collaboration of colleague Marc Lehrer, Ph.D., a developmental psychologist. A thorough account of the evolution of their work in prenatal stimulation can be found in an article published in Volume 3(2) of  JOPPPAH in 1988 and in the book, Prenatal Classroom: A Parent's Guide for Teaching Your Baby in the Womb (1992). Their latest work is: While You Are Expecting: Your Own Prenatal Classroom (1997). In 1998, Rene and Kristin were recipients of the “Elda Award” given by the International Society of Prenatal and Perinatal Medicine meeting in London, England "for their pioneering research in prenatal stimulation, their dedication to the developmental enhancement of all children, and their advocacy of parent-child dialog for family enrichment."

The title of their joint presentation was: "Can New Developments in Prenatal-Postnatal Stimulation Lead to Happier Babies? They offered recent insights from the field of "happiness research" and Positive Psychology indicating how happier individuals may be facilitated by pre- and perinatal stimulation.



                                                                            2003  Eva Gundberg, M.D., D.M.Sci.

Born in Sweden, Eva completed her medical education in Switzerland, earning M.D. and Doctor of Medical Science degrees from the University of Geneva. In Caracas, Venezuela she completed post-graduate work in obstetrics/gynecology and general surgery where she now resides and practices in a private hospital. In addition she directs childbirth in a provincial government hospital wholly oriented to natural births.

Dr. Gundberg is known as a passionate advocate of natural birth and has been a pioneer in teaching upright positions for birth. She is unusual also for her study and deep interest in humanistic psychology, psychoanalysis, and rebirthing, and for the integration of psychological approaches to all aspects of practice as an obstetrician/gynecologist.

Eva is President of the National Association for Prenatal Education (ANEP-Caracas) and in March 2001 organized the 4th Congress of the World Organization of Associations for Prenatal Education (OMAEP) on the ocean at Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela. The congress theme was "Toward a Violence-Free World."  Dr. Gundberg is a long-time member of APPPAH and frequent attendant of APPPAH International Congresses. She also serves as one of the distinguished International Advisors of APPPAH.


                                                                                      2001  Leo Sorger, M.D.

Trained in both Germany and the United States, Leo is an exemplary holistic obstetrician-gynecologist who has served women and babies for 42 years. Since 1971 he has been a Fellow of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology practicing in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and, most recently in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. For over twenty years he served as a clinical instructor at Boston University Medical School.

During his career Leo has been a dedicated proponent of natural, upright birth, attending hundreds of home births and providing backup for home birth midwives in both the United States and the Virgin Islands. A journalist once described him as “a midwife with a beard.” He has done hundreds of home births, helped over a thousand women have VBAC's with a success rate of 80%, done over 500 vaginal breech births, and several hundred external versions. In Massachusetts he was one of the first physicians to employ a midwife in his ob/gyn practice. Leo has an episiotomy rate of less than 3%, and under his care over 3500 women have delivered in the squatting position.  Dedicated to reforms in obstetrics, he has also served on many advisory boards including Doctors Opposed to Circumcision (D.O.C.) and the International Cesarean Awareness Network (ICAN).

 

You may have seen him on the cover of Birth Gazette magazine, in the films Hello Baby and Once a Cesarean…or in the video Channel for a New Life, featuring the birth of his son by Elizabeth Noble in a hot tub in the garden of their home in Cape Cod.  Leo wrote the Foreword to Silent Knife by Nancy Cohen and was the medical consultant to Having Twins and The Joy of Being a Boy written by Elizabeth Noble.

In his lecture, Dr. Sorger reflects on 42 years of obstetrical practice in Germany and the United States and shares personal stories of his journey as a quiet reformer blending psychology and medicine in service to mothers and babies. 

                                                                     1999   Lewis E. Mehl-Madrona, M.D., Ph.D.

Lewis Mehl-Madrona, M.D, Ph.D. is Medical Director, Center for Complementary Medicine at the University of Pittsburg Medical Center, Shadyside Hospital.  APPPAH published three of Lewis’ early papers which can be read in Journal volumes 3(1), 6(4), and 7(3). Lewis also served on the APPPAH board from 1992 to 1995 and effectively advocated changing the name of the Association to help health workers feel more at home at Congresses. Board members fully agreed and we became the Association for Pre- and Perinatal Psychology and Health.

 

True to his origins as a Kentucky Cherokee-Lakota, and with the inspiration of a great grandmother who was a native healer, Lewis eventually formulated his life mission to combine the practice of modern medicine and the traditions of Native American healing and other alternative therapies.  He describes his journey in Coyote Medicine (Scribner, 1997).

 

Lewis won his M.D. from Stanford University at age twenty-one and his Ph.D. in clinical psychology five years later (1980).  A succession of residencies has led to specialties in Family Practice, Behavioral Medicine, Psychiatry, Emergency Medicine, and Geriatrics.  He has held academic and research positions at Stanford, UC Berkeley, U. of Arizona, U. of Vermont, U. of Hawaii, and the University of Pittsburgh where he is currently Associate Professor of Family Practice and Epidemiology. Lewis is also proficient in hypnosis and acupuncture.

 

Enormously productive, he is the author of four books, 63 papers and chapters, and currently has 22 research papers in the review process looking toward publication.  His farsighted research in the 1970s revealed that women who gave birth at home with midwives in Santa Cruz, CA delivered more safely than a control group of women who gave birth in hospitals. (Publication of this research and discussing it on the Today Show, led to his leaving a residency at the U. of Wisconsin!)

 

Since that time, Mehl-Madrona has been a persistent advocate for home birth and midwifery and he has participated in about 800 births.  His research includes many studies of mothers and babies including factors associated with premature labor, and the psychiatric consequences of disrupting normal birth.  Using sophisticated computer simulation modeling, he has been able to specify the psychosocial factors predicting birth complications, fetal demise, birth weight and length of gestation.  His research findings can be used to both predict and prevent Cesarean births. For more information about Dr. Mehl-Madronna’s training and publications, see his website at: http://www.healing-arts.org/mehl-madrona/.

                                                                               1997  Marshall H. Klaus, M.D. 

We are honored to have as the first Cheek Memorial Lecturer, the pioneering pediatrician, Marshall Klaus, who was a close friend and colleague of David Cheek. Dr Klaus has had exceptional influence as researcher, professor of pediatrics in American medical schools, visiting professor in Chile and Australia, and author of books translated into many languages. With his long-time colleagues, pediatrician John Kennell, and his wife, psychotherapist Phyllis Klaus, this powerful trio has made "bonding" a household word. 

Dr. Klaus has held a succession of key academic and clinical positions dealing with the quality of neonatal intensive care at Stanford University, Michigan State University, and Case Western University in Cleveland. He authored the first text in neonatology (now in its 5th edition) and during his career trained over 35 Fellows--who are stepping into leadership positions today. His recent works have proven the advantages of continuous social support during labor and birth--a discovery that has opened hospital doors to "doulas." His research has demonstrated the critical nature of the early relationship of mothers and babies, while his illumination of The Amazing Newborn (1985) is making its way into the hearts of parents and doctors alike in seven languages. His address for this occasion is: "Normal Perinatal Care for the 21st Century: Evidence for Change."