“If the first course was about absorbing midwifery into the skin, this course is about beginning to feel it in your bones, think like a midwife, and trust that indeed you already are one.”
R. B., 2022
Don’t Miss This!!
FEES AND REGISTRATION
The Heart & Hands Beginning Intensives (virtual, correspondence, or onsite) are a prerequisite for the Advanced Intensives. Tuition is $1043, non-refundable, non-transferable and payable in advance. Please contact me re: payment plans.
To register, send check or money order made out to Elizabeth Davis to 3201 Burnside Rd, Sebastopol CA 95472, along with your email and phone number. Please include the date (month/year) you completed the beginning course.
Upon receipt, I will email a confirmation letter with all the details, including recommended texts and their cost. As the start date draws closer, I will email a PDF of Course Materials and Homework Assignments sheet.
Missed meetings can be made up in any subsequent series (space permitting), at a cost of $175 each, payable in advance.
COURSE CONTENT
Heart & Hands Advanced Intensives focus on application and refinement of knowledge and skills learned in the beginning Heart & Hands Beginning Intensives course. The workshop content builds on the foundation you have already established in your previous studies. Little homework – lots of small group concentration! Virtual format live on Zoom and on camera (unless feeling unwell).
These three, all-day sessions include:
- Initial interview, small group practice and critique
- Complete prenatal exam skills, including interview and routine care
- Charting
- Pelvic exam skills, including bimanual assessment, cervical assessment, and Pap smear
- Basics of non-pregnant client care, including breast health/exam and common gynecological concerns
- Case histories – prenatal, intrapartum and postpartum, workup and review
- Role-playing of crisis/complications management
- Grief counseling – debriefing difficult birth experiences (for practitioner and client)
- Liability, informed consent, setting boundaries in caregiving
- Venipuncture/blood draw techniques and labwork
- Guest midwives panel – midwives share their experiences and take student questions
- More on apprenticeship and licensure – practical preparation
“I found the advanced course to be the perfect place for integrating and distilling all the information from the beginning course. The case histories were extremely helpful, the complications role-playing empowering, and the midwife panel invaluable for bringing to life what so often feels abstract.”
C.J., 2024
FURTHERING YOUR MIDWIFERY STUDIES
Students seeking further instruction are encouraged to enroll in the National Midwifery Institute, Inc., a preferred option to pursue MEAC accredited midwifery training. Heart & Hands Beginning and Advanced Intensives comprise the preferred prerequisite for NMI enrollment as they provide a strong foundation for completing NMI’s Midwifery Certificate Program.
If you are interested in enrolling in NMI, please check the website regarding your state of residence to see if this is an option: https://www.nationalmidwiferyinstitute.com/states-permission-to-operate
Questions? For quick response, text me at (707) 695-6520, or email me at elizabeth@elizabethdavis.com (and please include your phone number).
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HEART & HANDS STAFF
Alissa Herbert, LM, CPM
Teaching Assistant
After earning a Masters in Education and teaching elementary school for 6 years, Alissa’s transformative experience of giving birth brought her to birth work. She became a doula in 2008, and in 2009, a birth assistant at Santa Barbara Midwifery, where she discovered true physiological birth, and the importance of individualized care and informed consent.
Alissa graduated from NMI in 2018 and became a full time midwife at Santa Barbara Midwifery, attending births in their freestanding birth center and also at home. Client education is one of her favorite parts of being a midwife, and she is thrilled to assist Elizabeth in educating future midwives as well.
Laura Perez, LM, CPM
BIPOC Student SUPPORT
Laura Perez is a Licensed and Certified Professional Midwife in San Francisco, one of only two midwives of color offering home birth services. She has attended primarily BIPOC families for the last 17 years, 8 years in her own practice. She has worked as a doula, a childbirth educator, a lactation educator, a placenta processor, and a Gynecological Teaching Associate. She served as clinic staff for a county hospital’s abortion clinic and co-founded Exhale, a post- abortion support organization.
She is proud of her working-class, immigrant heritage as a Native South American raised in New England. She is an NMI graduate, and is excited to offer support to BIPOC midwifery students!