Melissa Lonergan
Melissa is a Nurse Midwife who brings 40 years of experience to the teaching of this course. Over the years of being with so many families during their birth experience, she has learned that no two births are the same. She believes it is more useful to teach the skills to respond to whatever presents itself in labor or in life with wisdom and compassion.
Her path to becoming a midwife started during undergraduate studies with work as a women’s health educator at a free clinic in the early 1970’s in Austin, Texas. That work, combined with studies in psychology and social welfare studies impressed the importance of the empowerment of women and would become a guiding influence on the choice to become a midwife.
Melissa began training in Nancy Bardacke’s adaptation of the MBSR program for childbirth education in 2015 and began incorporating some of the elements of MBCP into the prenatal care groups she facilitated and was able to see how useful these practices are for childbearing families.
As she studied the MBCP program with Nancy, she also began Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) teacher training through the University of Massachusetts Medical School and Brown University. She has now completed the requirements to be a qualified teacher of MBSR.
Upcoming Programs with Melissa
Please check back for future programs with Melissa.