Originally from San Francisco, California, Salem spent her childhood traveling the world and living in Hong Kong with her missionary parents.

Beginning her own family in Atlanta, Georgia in 1984 and moving to Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1985, she began a support network "For Mom's" that acted as a resource for women during their childbearing years.

In 2001, following the home birth of her fifth child, Salem moved her family to the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica to work with midwives there. Upon her return to the U.S in 2002, she began actively working to form an international activist organization that would seek to eliminate restrictions on birthing mothers and their babies. Birth Without Boundaries, International was founded in the fall of 2004, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Salem, mother of 6, grandmother of 1, has been attending births since 1984, and works as an ALACE certified childbirth assistant.

Shanden is a young energetic woman who is dedicated to making birth peaceful. Her journey with Birth started at a young age, as a birth assistant to members of her family. She is aspiring to become a midwife and keep the cycle of peace in birth going.

"There is no single effort more radical in its potential for saving the world than a transformation of the way we raise our children."
- Marianne Williamson