The Fabulous
Birth Emergency Skills Training®
~ Team Members ~
Meet your BEST Instructors and Online Program Creators!
Andrea Dixon, Nurse-Midwife
Avril Bowens
BSN-RN, CPM
Avril Bowens is a Birth Emergency Skills Training® (BEST) and Neonatal Resuscitation (NRP) Instructor, Midwife, preceptor and mentor and has spent her entire adult life supporting families giving birth. She was the primary force behind the creation of the BEST® online programs and continues to create new workshops for midwives and students so they can better serve their communities. Check out Thriving through Midwifery for more MEAC accredited educational opportunities with the company she founded, the Midwife Method ~ Supporting and educating both pregnant women and the midwives who serve them.
She is currently writing both an Interactive Student Workbook and a Midwife's Handbook for the Birthbag to accompany Bonnie Gruenberg's "Birth Emergencies for Community Midwives".
Avril is a devoted life long learner herself and through the years she has trained as an herbalist, Birthing from Within, Hypnobirthing and Hypnobabies childbirth education, prenatal yoga, core and pelvic floor rehabilitation, body work and movement therapies, homeopathy, use of essential oils and so much more! She is also a nurse and works with the Atlanta Birth Center and attended the Nurse Practitioner program at Georgetown University (which got interrupted 3/4 of the way through after a devastating motorcycle accident).
She is a mother of 3 fabulous adult children, lives on a farm, grows food, medicinals and animals in WNC, with her partner of 30 years, is an herbalist, healer and integrative midwife who incorporates mind - body - spirit supportive therapies into her own life and for the women and families she works with.
Willa Woodard-Ervin
CPM, LDM/PMH-C/HCHI
BEST assistant- instructor lives in Southern Oregon, is a lover of books, bare feet, art, and beautiful gardens. Willa became a midwife thanks to her friend, the late, great midwife Sharon Evans. She spent years in homebirth and birthcenter practices in Idaho, Utah, the Oregon coast, and Southern Oregon prior to establishing the freestanding, Rogue Birth Center LLC with her husband of three + decades. A published author, formulating herbal specialist for wellness products, and nationally recognized midwifery preceptor, Willa maintains a recognized training facility/site, Hypnobabies Doula and Childbirth Educator status as well as Hypnobabies Childbirth Hypnosis Instructor. Certified in Prenatal to Postnatal massage, she graduated with Distinction from University of Hawai’i West Oahu in Public Administration & Community Health as Outstanding Student in Community Health by the PUEO Award. A Via Vita Midwifery Foundation graduate, she studied naturopathy, with PRI certifications in Pelvis Restoration and Postural Respiration, is a functional nutrition counselor, and certified Perinatal Mental Health Professional through PSI. Local representative for the Oregon Midwifery Council (3 yrs) and one year as Vice President, she remains active on multiple legislative committees pertaining to birthcenter and midwifery licensing rules and statutes in Oregon and Hawaii. As Instructor/Academic Faculty at Commonsense Childbirth School of Midwifery (CCSM) Willa teaches live online and in-person skills intensives with midwifery students. She lives a life of purpose and positivity, courage and resilience, and desires the same for others, “May the wind under your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon walks,” The Hobbit.
Meet the Author 'Birth Emergency Skills Training'
Bonnie U. Gruenberg, CNM, MSN, CRNP, former EMT-P
Bonnie is the author of the award winning book, Birth Emergency Skills Training; Manual for Out-of-Hospital Midwives and co-developer of the workshop by the same name. Her latest contribution to the advancement of midwifery is her 550 page Birth Emergencies for Community Midwives. She has caught more than 2,000 babies to date in the home, in a free-standing birth center, and in the hospital. She currently works for Wellspan Health in Lancaster County, PA.
Bonnie has written and illustrated 12 books on topics ranging from midwifery and maternity care to wild horse management. She is currently completing the second edition of Birth Emergency Skills Training®
and is developing a eclectic tutorial website at www.HowWeDIDthat.com.
She enjoys painting and pottery, photography, film making, and hobby farming and also illustrates her own books.
Birth Emergency Skills Training®
Participant testimonials, shared with permission.
"I drove to the workshop feeling a little silly for even coming b/c I was considering leaving midwifery. I've had two traumatic births in my first year, I'm realizing my apprenticeship didn't prepare me well, my confidence was lacking so much that I couldn't even call myself a midwife easily.
After completing it, I walked away a different midwife. Yes, I am a midwife and I know how to handle scary situations. I am equipped and ready. I think this training probably will become a turning point in my midwifery story.
Thank you for so thoughtfully framing the hands on portion as a place FOR us to learn whatever we need and not just for us to use to check off that we've attended/performed. It really was created to meet our individual needs, whatever they were when we walked in the doors. Thank you, thank you, thank you. May God bless you rich!"
"This workshop was exactly what I needed to overcome some traumatic births."
"I loved that I could tell Andrea exactly what I needed to practice and she led it."
"I really appreciated the accessibility of the online course, as well as the in person portion. Being able to pace myself and take in the online material helped my learning -- I could take breaks as needed and let the material sink in in ways that are difficult when all the material is presented all at once in an in person-only format. It worked really well for me."
"The in depth review we receive in this workshop is need for the safety of our patients and our livelihoods. Your workshops are a blessing!"
“BEST was fantastic, it was hands down the best CEU course I have ever taken in my 25 years of being a Nurse-Midwife”
Don't let the sun set
on your birth emergency skills.
Take a
Birth Emergency Skills Training®
and be prepared for the unexpected!
When you are well equipped and prepared to handle anything, you can relax and sink fully into supporting the birth unfolding before you.
Contact Us Today!
