title: Janet Balaskas
text: # Janet Balaskas
  
  Janet Balaskas is an author, founder of the Active Birth Movement, and childbirth educator. She is perhaps known best for her advocacy of active birth where the woman is free to move during labour, rather than being placed into stirrups or the lithotomy position. She coined the term active birth which she explained in the first of her books Active Birth published in 1983.
  
  Born in South Africa she is currently the Director of the Active Birth Centre in London, UK.
  
  