GOLD Speakers

Denise Love, RN, MN

• Country: Australia

Biography:

Denise Love is a dynamic international speaker and educator. She is passionate about life and compelled to support women through their many transitions in life. With an ever developing interest in life and death, she walks the path with many around death, particularly women whose babies die, either in utero, at birth, or soon thereafter. With a Masters degree in nursing, living and working in remote villages in Asian countries as well as Australia, she is determined that women and babies be treated respectfully within their cultural expectations.

As a childbirth educator and an instigator of the introduction and training of doulas in Australia 20 years ago, Denise identified the vital need for birthing women to ""find their voice"" and trust their ancient internal ability to birth their babies. This recognition was stimulated by the developed world's highly structured interventionist and medicalised birthing paradigms and seemingly inflexible protocols and practices. Birth matters and so does the way we all die. Combining direct language, ritual and acknowledgement of grief when a baby dies, Denise brings a refreshing attitude and approach. In her early years, practising as a Registered Nurse in remote indigenous communities, Denise gained valuable insight into how to trust our innate ability to birth, live fully and die. Denise's view has since been further reinforced through her work with vulnerable marginalised villagers in developing countries, where death is accepted as just a normal part of living.