TRAINING THE MENTOR

Maureen Stevens RN, MSN, CCE, Certified Perinatal Support Specialist (CPSS) has over 20 years sharing the birth experience with women and their families in and out of the hospital setting as a labor and delivery nurse, childbirth educator, labor support specialist and hospital staff educator. In the 80s Maureen traveled extensively in Europe examining women's alternative obstetrical practice. Maureen spent two weeks observing labor, birth and postpartum practices in Pithiviers, France where Michel Odent pioneered his natural childbirth techniques and began a center for those who wished to change opinions and practices in childbirth. In 1985 Maureen became certified in the “Relaxation Response” with Herbert Benson, MD through the Harvard School of Behavioral Medicine, Cambridge, Mass.

Employed for ten years by a level one hospital as staff nurse, staff educator, perinatal educator, and case manager, Maureen learned obstetrics form all view points. While developing a marketing plan Choices in Childbirth/The Stork Society, utilizing birth plans and personalized childbirth preparation, Maureen continued to run a successful business of her own, Conceptions, a labor support and perinatal consulting firm.

In 1990 she became a childbirth educator and wrote her own book, The Best Birth Book, for use in her classroom, utilizing her past experience, what she had learned in Europe and from Dr. Benson along with William’s Obstetrics, Varney’s Midwifery, Oxford’s Human Labor and Birth, and Myles Textbook for Midwives . She believed that birthing women could understand the birth process if it was presented in an understandable format and that they deserved some of same knowledge that their health care providers possessed. She felt that if they understood the process, their fear would decrease and they would begin to look forward to their birth with anticipation and joy. From her experience with birthing mothers she noticed the importance of the emotional aspect of labor and birth, the incredible mind-body connection and the intricate role of these both meshed with neurohormonal balance. In 1999 Maureen left the hospital to pursue her own business www.childbirths.com full time.

Maureen has taught prenatal and postpartum fitness, movement awareness, yoga, infant massage and water exercise. Currently she trains childbirth educators and conducts workshops for nurses and professionals, teaches childbirth classes, a labor support training course, infant massage and sibling preparation classes. Maureen is on the adjunct faculty of Azusa Pacific University, School of Nursing in the BSN program teaching Maternal-Child Health. Maureen is also on the part-time faculty of Saddleback College, School of Nursing where she teaches Nursing Care of the Family in Labor and Delivery, High-Risk Antepartum Nursing and Postpartum Mother Baby Couplet Nursing, and Labor and Delivery Internship.