2016 Speakers & Topics

Carrie Sue Halsey is a Clinical Nurse Specialist located in Houston, Texas.  She earned her advanced nursing degree from the University of Cincinnati and her BSN from the University of West Florida. She is NCC certified in inpatient obstetrics and is an NRP and AWHONN instructor. She is a Trained Breastfeeding Educator and enjoys assisting parents with their breastfeeding goals.  Carrie is a natural birth and breastfeeding advocate.  Carrie advocates for education and empowerment for nurses and parents through on her blog, PerinatalEmpowerment.com and YouTube Channel. Her experiences of pregnancy, labor and birth as a mother, nurse, writer and educator have made her a passionate crusader for perinatal empowerment.

Dr. Briere is a Nurse Scientist and Postdoctoral fellow with a joint appointment at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center and the University of Connecticut, School of Nursing. Her clinical background is as a nurse in a level IV Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. As a nurse in the NICU, Dr. Briere was passionate about getting mothers to hold and feed their babies, and be directly involved in the care and decision making during their infant’s hospitalization. During her doctoral program Dr. Briere’s research focused on the importance of direct-breastfeeding in the NICU. Towards the end of her program, she learned about the presence of stem cells in breastmilk. Since then, she has transitioned into a bench to bedside translation research trajectory where she is studying breastmilk stem cells. Her work is focused on breastmilk stem cells from mothers of preterm infants and their involvement in infant growth and development, specifically their protective and regenerative mechanisms.

Deb Fraser, MN, RNC-NIC is an Associate Professor and the Director of the Nurse Practitioner program in the Faculty of Health Disciplines at Athabasca University. She holds an appointment in the Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Manitoba (U of M). Debbie maintains an active practice in the NICU at St Boniface General Hospital and is the Editor-in-Chief of Neonatal Network: The Journal for Neonatal Nursing. She is the author of two nursing textbooks and over 70 book chapters and peer-reviewed articles on topics related to high risk newborns. Debbie was recently awarded the Canadian Nurses’ Association Order of Merit for nursing education.

Dixie Whetsell, MS, IBCLC, has a Master’s Degree in Community Health Education from the University of Oregon.  She began working with breastfeeding families in 1992 and became an IBCLC in 1998.  She has worked as a lactation consultant in private practice, for county and state public health programs, and in healthcare settings.  She began teaching lactation training courses in 2003, and has taught in hospital, community and academic settings.  She currently works in Portland Oregon for Legacy Health in high risk maternal and pediatric hospitals.  She also teaches lactation courses at Portland State University School of Community Health.  She is an active member of the Oregon Washington Lactation Association, the US Lactation Consultant Association, and the International Lactation Consultant Association.  She was a founding Board Member for Northwest Mothers Milk Bank, a HMBANA non-profit donor milk bank.

Janice Banther has been a pioneer leader among birth professionals in advocating for pregnant women who are incarcerated. She is the Founder and Executive Director of Birth Behind Bars (BBB). BBB began providing childbirth and parenting classes and labor support services to inmates in 2001. Prior to 2001 Janice focused her childbirth work primarily with at risk mothers; homeless, addicted and abused. This body of work has earned Janice the highest certifications. She is a certified CAPPA Childbirth Educator, Labor Doula, Happiest Baby on the Block, Infant Massage Instructor, Trainer and Bereavement Counselor with RTS. BBB expanded its training of birth professionals to work with inmates in 2015 with the release of Birth Behind Bars Certification program; an online and manual based program equipping childbirth educators and birth professionals to work in a jail or prison environment in the United States and Internationally.

Jen McLellan is a publish author and certified childbirth educator who advocates for plus size women. She promotes positive information to empower healthy decision making during pregnancy. Within her blog, Plus Size Mommy Memoirs, she helps women navigate the world of plus size pregnancy, shares tips for embracing your body, and laughs along with the adventures of motherhood. Her work has been featured in major publications such as Yahoo Shine, Huffington Post, Everyday Feminism, and International Doula. Jen is also a skilled patient advocate, professional speaker, wife, and mother to a charismatic 5 year old.

Dr. Karen D’Apolito is a Professor and Program Director of the Neonatal Nurse Practitioner Program at the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing. She has made national and international contributions to the care of drug-exposed infants through both education and research. Dr. D’Apolito received her PhD from the University of Washington, Seattle and her Post Masters Certificate as an NNP from the University of Tennessee, Memphis. In 2011 Dr. Apolito became a Fellow in American Academy of Nursing for her work with substance exposed infants. She developed a unique inter-observer reliability program to train healthcare professionals in assessing infants for signs of withdrawal. She has published numerous articles related to the effects of intra-uterine drug exposure on neonatal abstinence and has been an invited speaker to many local, national and international conferences to speak on this topic. Dr. D’Apolito has participated in two large multi-site clinical trials associated with neonatal abstinence syndrome and she recently completed a grant received from the TN Department of Health to identify the common treatment practices of infants with NAS within the state of TN.

Dr. Kathleen Baird is a Senior Midwifery Lecturer at the School of Nursing and Midwifery, Griffith University and Director of Midwifery and Nursing Education, Women’s and Newborn Service, Gold Coast Hospital. For the last fifteen years Kathleen’s main research interests have centred around intimate partner violence, with a focus on violence during pregnancy. Kathleen’s PhD explored women’s experiences of partner violence during pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period.  Kathleen has been involved with domestic violence training of qualified health professionals, undergraduate and postgraduate health students and members of the voluntary services for several years. Kathleen is currently involved with several research projects in relation to intimate partner violence and the role of health care and sits on the Queensland Domestic and Family Violence Prevention Council.

Miranda Buck, PhD, RN, IBCLC is Clinical Nurse Consultant for lactation at the Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne, Australia. She also a researcher and lecturer in nursing, teaching students in undergraduate and postgraduate courses. Miranda has worked as a neonatal intensive care nurse and lactation consultant in both the UK and Australia since 1995. Miranda’s PhD work focused on breastfeeding difficulties, specifically nipple pain and the barriers that hinder, and variables that encourage, breastfeeding. Her goal is to support all mothers to breastfeed for as long as they wish to through education, research, clinical practice and by lobbying for broader social and political changes."

Nancy Irland, DNP, RN, CNM, is a highly respected nurse, author, and clinical leader.  Her obstetrical  experience spans more than 44 years.  She has enjoyed supporting women through their journey into motherhood as a labor and delivery nurse, certified nurse-midwife, and perinatal clinical specialist in a high risk tertiary care center. She has presented nationally and internationally, most recently at the Royal College of surgeons in Ireland (RCSI).  In 2013, Dr. Irland was honored by the Oregon March of dimes as Nurse Educator of the Year. She is the past AWHONN Oregon Section Chair, and has served on the editorial board of Nursing for Women’s Health.  In that capacity, she wrote a column titled, “Understand What You Know.”Dr. Irland’s passion is creating materials for other peoples’ success.  She incorporates humor and metaphor in her teaching, and is sure to provide you with “Aha!” moments that you can take back to work immediately.  

Rebecca Dekker, PhD, RN, APRN, received her Master of Science in Nursing and Doctor of Philosophy in Nursing from the University of Kentucky and her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Dr. Dekker has built a strong reputation in maternal and child circles for her pioneering work as the founder of Evidence Based Birth.® The mission of Evidence Based Birth® is to promote evidence based care by putting research evidence on childbirth into the hands of professionals and families, changing maternity care from the inside out and the outside in. Dr. Dekker serves as a peer reviewer for maternal health research journals, volunteers on the advisory board for ImprovingBirth.org and DONA International, and has presented to a number of leading organizations in the birthing field, including the American College of Nurse Midwives, the March of Dimes, and Lamaze and DONA International.

Robbie Davis-Floyd PhD, Senior Research Fellow, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Texas Austin and Fellow of the Society for Applied Anthropology, is a world-renowned medical anthropologist, international speaker and researcher in transformational models in childbirth, midwifery and obstetrics. She is author of over 80 articles and of Birth as an American Rite of Passage (1992, 2004), coauthor of From Doctor to Healer: The Transformative Journey (1998) and The Power of Ritual (forthcoming 2015), and lead editor of 10 collections, the latest of which is Birth Models That Work (2009), which highlights optimal models of birth care around the world. Volume II: Birth on the Global Edge, coedited with Betty-Anne Daviss, is in process. Her current research project studies the paradigm shifts of holistic obstetricians in Brazil. Robbie serves as Editor for the International MotherBaby Childbirth Initiative (IMBCI): 10 Steps to Optimal Maternity Care (www.imbci.org), Board Member of the International MotherBaby Childbirth Organization (IMBCO), and Senior Advisor to the Council on Anthropology and Reproduction. Most of her published articles are freely available on her website www.davis-floyd.com.

Theresa Nesbitt, RN MD ("Dr. Theresa") is an Obstetrician-Gynecologist with special training in Maternal Fetal Medicine. Her interests these days lie in promoting lifelong wellness for women with a focus on nutrition, reproductive health and breastfeeding. She is the Director of Family Health Coaching, editor of Babies and Breastfeeding Magazine and author of Evolutionary Eating: How We Got Fat and 7 Simple Fixes. She anticipates publication of her newest book Building a Baby Brain Bite by Bite - How to Eat Before, During and Afte Pregnancy in 2016. Dr Nesbitt developed an interest in breastfeeding because of she observed that although many pregnant women PLAN to breastfeed, they are not really PREPARED to do so. Her interest in brain growth and development, nutrition and developmental kinesiology have helped her to look at breastfeeding and human milk from a new perspective.