The Calm Birth Team

Robert Bruce Newman

Founder

Calm Birth was developed from Robert’s years of work with doctors, childbirth educators, midwives, nurses, and doulas. It's based on methods he learned and was authorized to teach during his more than 20 years of apprenticeship with Tibetan meditation teachers and doctors. He has presented more than 100 hospital and conference training seminars in the Calm Birth method since 1997.

Robert has presented the method at four congresses of the Association for Pre and Perinatal Psychology and Health, at the University of Michigan Medical School, and at Bastyr University. He has taught at the University of Colorado, Naropa University, and the City University of New York. His books include: Calm Birth: New Method for Conscious Childbirth (North Atlantic Books, 10/05); Empowered Care: Mind-Body Medicine Methods (Portal Center Press, 12/2012). Published feature articles include: The Emergence of Mind/Body Medicine (Sentient Times, 8/99).

Anna Humphreys
MSW, MPH, BADT C-FSD
Director

I have been a birth doula since 2012, and started teaching Calm Birth around the same time. I worked with private clients as well as on call in hospitals in Southern Oregon. There, I saw Calm Birth help birth-givers stay connected with their bodies and their babies before, during, and after birth.

However, as I worked as a volunteer with people who were in at-risk groups, I realized how much I had to learn about the larger systems that influence health outcomes. I attended the University of Washington for a dual Masters in Social Work and Public Health to focus on learning about systemic racism, the impacts of poverty and inequality on health, and how the climate crisis impacts us now and in the future.

At the end of graduate school, I accepted the position of Director of Calm Birth. I commit to applying what I have learned about inequities in the healthcare system to my work in this program. This includes working towards being an anti-racist organization, guaranteeing access to classes, materials, and teacher trainings, and working with other birth-related organizations to approach anti-racism from a systems-level perspective. I also strive to incorporate climate justice into reproductive healthcare, with an understanding that the coming generations deserve a livable planet to thrive upon.

However, my journey as a birth worker is far from complete! In 2021 I entered Bastyr University’s Midwifery program, with anticipated graduation of 2024. I’m eager to incorporate everything I have learned into a conscious midwifery practice.

Today, I live with my husband, mother, sister, and dog in Seattle, Washington, where I enjoy hiking, cycling, and gardening.

As the child of meditators, I have the felt experience of being connected to my parents during my early days of development. I consider it a high honor to share this experience with tomorrow's children.

Naima Bond

Co-Director, Teacher Trainer

I see each pregnancy as a unique miracle.

I have been serving children and families for over 25 years in the area of early childhood and disabilities. I recently shifted my focus to supporting mothers through the birthing process. I've been a professional Doula since 2016. I help people embark on their birthing journey by understanding their personal birth desires. Then I provide the necessary educational information, resources and physical and emotional support to make this happen.  I am also trained as a Calm Birth teacher, I am a Peanut Ball Ambassador and I know reflexology point to assist birthing people with comfort measures. I also teach yoni steaming for women who are pregnant and recovering after pregnancy through Steamy Chicks Peristeam Hydrotherapy program.

I am currently getting certified through DONA and Matrona Doula certifications. My son and I live in Atlanta, GA.

I love supporting birthing people and families create the birth experience they desire.

Adrienne Bergthold

Co-Director, Teacher Trainer

I’m a California native now residing in Baltimore, Maryland. I happened upon the book Calm Birth one day on library shelf almost 16 years ago. My love for these practices of peace, bonding and Calm Birth have only grown over time.

I thought I wanted to be an elementary school teacher. After I finished college and was about to start student teaching, someone gave me a card to the Holistic Health Institute in Berkeley, California and I never ended up teaching school— and instead I enrolled in and graduated from massage school!

From there I went down to Santa Barbara to live at The White Lotus Foundation to study yoga and meditation practices where I became certified to teach. I really fell in love with the simple practice of breath and it was quite profound. '

Back home I had a friend who was a home birth midwife. I would massage her clients during labor and assist her in small ways during the births. That is where my interest in how birth could be better than what I had experienced as a young teen mom: I’d ended up having a cesarean birth. My birth assisting came to a stop when a friend was diagnosed with and later died from breast cancer. That took me on a whole new trajectory and I ended up studying to become an oncology massage therapist in order to better serve my friend and later on to start a hospital based oncology massage therapy program at Doctors Medical Center in California.

I did that until I moved to Baltimore and then at 37 while teaching prenatal yoga, I became pregnant! Because of that birth outcome and my sister's birth outcome two weeks later which ended in birth loss, when I "found" Calm Birth on the library shelf that day and read it. I knew I had to know more.  Robert just happened to be teaching up in New Jersey with Christine Novak and I took my first Calm Birth training up in 2010 in Summit New Jersey and then I took the next training and the next one and the next one....I've  lost count. I had so much to learn and process around birth.  My interest in better birth outcomes led me to APPPAH, where I am enrolled in the Pre and Perinatal educator certification program. I could go on but let me just say I am so happy to be a teacher trainer for these practices. I love sharing with families how they can have a better kind of birth using something as simple and yet profound as the breath, and how we can also breathe in the supportive and nurturing energy which is always all around us. 

Michelle Smith

The Voice; Teaching Assistant

Shatia Owsley

Teaching Assistant

I am a holistic psychosocial and trauma practitioner who has worked in the maternal health and social services field for over 18 years. My professional journey has allowed me to work closely with teen moms, infants and children with complex medical conditions, as well as women and families with varying life transformations. In 2010, I began shifting my approach to incorporate more Eastern and holistic health practices to empower my clients.

I earned a masters in Health Education and Promotion, focusing my studies on educating BIPOC women on the benefits of a healthy mind, body and spirit connection during pregnancy. I have continued to advance my studies by pursuing various trainings and certifications in maternal social justice, pre and perinatal psychology, birth trauma processing, trauma informed yoga, breathwork, Calm Birth Meditation, Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP), indigenous postpartum care practices, ecological breastfeeding, infant massage, and various forms of energy healing (reiki, quantum healing, sound bath therapy, etc.).

My goal when working with families is to listen, empower, coach and support them as they re-discover that they are the experts of their lives. I serve as a supportive presence as they face the many adventures of life on their own terms. I am a part of a growing community of holistic and spiritual healers, as well as medical and mental health professionals dedicated to the connection of the mind, body and spirit.