About Nancy

In the 37 years of working with birthing families, I have attended deliveries in homes, birth centers and hospitals and have taught the art of midwifery to others. I have an enduring interest in mind/body medicine, and as a nurse-midwife I have often witnessed the powerful effect of the mind on the body, particularly in the domains of pregnancy, childbirth and parenting. In 1978, when pregnant with my second son, I began the practice of yoga, and in 1982 began practicing meditation, studying with teachers from a variety of traditions. As my practice and understanding of meditation and yoga deepened, I began integrating this wisdom into both my work as a midwife and into my family life with my husband, two sons and two stepsons. They are now young men, ages 39, 30, 28 and 24.  The births of my delightful grandsons in 2004 and 2007 happily initiated me into grandparenting.

In 1994 I participated in a training for health professionals with Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D. learning about the pioneering work he and his colleagues developed at the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. The basic MBSR program teaches mindful awareness through meditation and yoga to people with a wide variety of health challenges, including chronic pain. It was at this training that I saw how it might be possible to bring the tremendous benefits of mindfulness practice that I knew from my own life to those I served as a midwife. I set my intention to teach mindfulness to parents and parents-to-be, offering to them a way of working with the many physical and emotional challenges of pregnancy, childbirth and parenting.

I have now taught mindfulness skills to thousands of expectant families through workshops and the 8 week Mindfulness-Based Childbirth and Parenting Education Program. It has been deeply moving to witness the transformational power of mindfulness as it becomes part of the lives of pregnant couples and young families. Participants say that learning mindfulness at this wonderfully joyful and stressful time brings benefits greater than they could have imagined. (Please see What Participants Say) They report that the skills they learned in the course enables them to work with the stresses of pregnancy, the pain of childbirth and with whatever arises in their birthing experiences. And, after birth, mindfulness practice continues to serve them both individually and as a couple in the intense adjustment to life with a new baby, beoming a foundation and resource for building a family based on kindness, connection and wisdom.

The program continues to expand, and now includes Mindfulness-Based Infant Massage; Mindful Parenting; Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Perinatal Health Professionalsand various workshops, trainings and retreats for midwives, nurses, obstetricians, childbirth educators, doulas, lactation consultants, counselors, psychotherapists and others who work with children and families. A Professional Development and Training Program for those interested in teaching Mindfulness-Based Childbirth and Parenting Education began in September of 2005 and a 6-day retreat and training was held in January 2007. 

In 2006 I was honored to become an Assistant Clinical Professor in the UCSF School of Nursing, Dept of Family Health Care Nursing and in 2007 joined the staff at the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at UCSF, where I began teaching the MBCP course. In April 2007, in collaboration with Dr. Dacher Keltner and the Center for the Development of Peace and Well-Being at UC Berkeley we begin a research study on the effects of mindfulness practice in the lives of pregnant, birthing and postpartum families and their infants.

I continue to find great delight and deep satisfaction in teaching, in the growth of the program and in the increasing opportunites to share this work with expectant parents and professionals interested in the health and well-being of families.