Parents in the NICU Online Course(s) & Continuing Education

Kate White is and award-winning craniosacral and massage therapist, prenatal and early childhood educator. She is trained in somatic therapies, prenatal and perinatal health, lactation, brain development, infant mental health, and has specialized in mother-baby dyad care using somatic prevention and trauma healing approaches for nearly 20 years. She is a mother of two children, holds a BA and MA in Communication, is a Registered Craniosacral Therapist in the Biodynamic Craniosacral method and a Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner. Her work combines somatic therapy with brain development to help give families with babies and small children the best possible start. She is Founding Director of Education for the Association for Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health from 2013 – 2018 where she managed a large online educational program for professionals. She currently co-directs this program, administering an online program for parents and parent professionals, runs a private practice and offers her own seminars through the Center for Prenatal and Perinatal Programs, ppncenter.com.

Naomi Bar-Yam, PhD, ACSW, has been working in maternal and child health for over 30 years as an educator, researcher, advocate, and writer. She is the immediate past president of the Human Milk Banking Association of North America (HMBANA) and the founding director of Mothers’ Milk Bank Northeast, which provides safe donor milk to hospitals and families throughout the northeastern US. An expert on access to perinatal health care and policies that support breastfeeding, she has been a consultant to the Centers for Disease Control (on a panel that created “The CDC Guide to Breastfeeding Interventions”), to the United States Breastfeeding Committee (developing an issue paper addressed to CEOs and legislators on breastfeeding and the workplace), and to the March of Dimes (developing educational material for women and families who are medically and socially vulnerable to high-risk pregnancy). She also developed a curriculum for hospital personnel about combining breastfeeding with their work. She reviews articles submitted to the Journal of Human Lactation, Breastfeeding Medicine, and other publications related to breastfeeding, milk banking, and access to perinatal child care. As Executive Director of Mothers’ Milk Bank Northeast, she is thoroughly versed in the technical, procedural, and ethical aspects of milk banking. She often speaks at professional conferences, hospital staff trainings, and grand rounds about milk banking and breastfeeding policies.

Kara Wahlin is a licensed marriage and family therapist and art therapist who resides in the Coachella Valley of southern California. After going through the preterm birth of her twin sons William and Elliott, and the subsequent loss of William, Kara made the promise to dedicate her clinical work to helping other families coping with the trauma and loss often wrought by the NICU experience. She developed the website NICU Healing in order to provide free information, couples and individual therapy, and online support to NICU families. Kara uses strengths-based, neuroloscientifically-informed and creative practices to empower her clients to picking up the pieces of their lives and moving forward with their new life stories. She speaks frequently at conferences discussing best clinical practices, and writes for her own as well as other blogs about new ways of coping with mental health issues that come up after traumatic experiences. In her free time, Kara and her son Elliott are art machines and expert hikers, and also spend their time at home with their menagerie of small animals.

Renée Flacking is Associate Professor and the leader for Reproductive, Infant and Child Health (RICH) at the School of Education, Health and Social Studies, Dalarna University, Sweden. Renée has a background as a Paediatric Nurse, having worked in a Neonatal Care Unit for more than 10 years. In 2007, she received her PhD in Medical Science, Uppsala University: Breastfeeding and Becoming a Mother – Influences and Experiences of Mothers of Preterm Infants. In 2009-2010 she undertook her PostDoc, conducting an ethnographic study in neonatal units in Sweden and England focusing on infant feeding and relationality. Renée has published more than 40 articles on neonatal care and is the Editor, together with Professor Fiona Dykes, for the book Ethnographic Research in Maternal and Child Health, Routledge. Renée’s main research interest is in the area of parenting and feeding in families with preterm infants focusing on emotional, relational and socio-cultural influences.

Manuela Filippa is researcher at the Geneva University. She received her PhD in Developmental Psychology at the University of Paris Ouest Nanterre, she studies the effects of the Early Vocal Contact - maternal direct speech and songs - on premature infant’s development in collaboration with international research centers. She is a Musician by training, she teaches Psychology of Music and Music Education at the University of Valle d'Aosta, Italy. She became an expert in the field of early interventions in at-risk populations. Her scientific works were published in a number of international journals, in a dedicated book on Early Vocal Contact and, lastly, in a Special Issue of National Geographic, January 2019.

Anna Axelin’s academic career has included conducting quantitative and qualitative research on maternity and neonatal care in multidisciplinary and international research groups. In the Academic year 2011-2012, she joined the faculty of Department of Family Health Care Nursing in University of California San Francisco for her post-doctoral research. Since 2018, she was appointed as an associated researcher in the Department of International Maternal and Child Health at University of Uppsala in Sweden. In addition to the academic career, she has ten-year working experience as a NICU nurse.
She is leading the Health in Early Life and Parenthood (HELP) research group which aims to promote health and welfare in the early stages of life. Her special research interest is how to keep parents and sick newborns together throughout the infant hospital stay and strengthen their relationship already during pregnancy. Anna Axelin’s other research interests include pain and sleep in neonates, and the implementation of evidence-based practice in maternity and neonatal care with the help information technology.

Keira Sorrells is the mother of triplets born at 25 weeks, 5 days gestation. After starting a non-profit, the Zoe Rose Memorial Foundation in 2008, to offer support services to NICU and bereaved families, she became aware that a collective voice for parents of NICU babies was missing in the Maternal and Infant Health community. In response, she helped launch the Preemie Parent Alliance (PPA) in 2012, where she now serves as President. PPA is a national network of 35 NICU parent support organizations that collaborate to represent the needs and best interests of NICU families in a variety of ways. Ms. Sorrells believes a trusting parent-provider relationship is crucial to build a foundation of empowerment and support on which NICU families thrive well beyond discharge, no matter what the ultimate outcome may be.

Prof. (Dr.) Minesh Khashu M.B.B.S, MD, FRCPCH, FRSA, Q Fellow ( Health Foundation & NHS Improvement), Fellow England Centre for Practice Development Consultant Neonatologist, Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust & Prof. of Perinatal Health, Bournemouth University. Clinical Director, Maternity & Neonatal Care, Regional Strategic Clinical Network, NHS England, Wessex Dr. Khashu has received national and international recognition for his work especially in Quality Improvement, Necrotizing Enterocolitis and improving fathers experiences of neonatal care. Dr. Khashu is a clinical leader reimagining healthcare with a focus on system wide transformation, continuous Quality Improvement and Patient Centred Care. He has experience of clinical management and leadership at hospital, regional and national level including strategic change, system redesign, large scale quality improvement and development of national guidance and multi stakeholder collaboration. He has developed the DadPad Neonatal, a resource to support dads whose babies have been admitted to neonatal units. This has been very well received by parents, families, healthcare professionals and charities and nominated for multiple national awards. https://thedadpad.co.uk/neonatal/ He has also set up SIGNEC (special interest group for NEC) in the U.K. and developed a website for parents/families and health professiaonals which has been much appreciated. https://signec.org/ He convenes International Conferences on NEC in London regularly.

Franco A. Carnevale is a nurse, psychologist and clinical ethicist. He completed: an undergraduate nursing degree, three master's degrees (nursing, education, bioethics), and doctorate in counseling psychology at McGill University; a master’s degree in philosophy at Université de Sherbrooke and a second doctorate in moral philosophy at Université Laval. Dr. Carnevale is the founder and principal investigator for VOICE (Views On Interdisciplinary Childhood Ethics); a McGill University-based international initiative to advance knowledge and practices relating to ethical concerns in childhood. Current academic appointments include (McGill University): Full Professor, Ingram School of Nursing; Associate Member, Faculty of Medicine (Pediatrics); Adjunct Professor, Counselling Psychology; Affiliate Member, Biomedical Ethics Unit. Clinical appointments include: Associate Member, Pediatric Critical Care, Montreal Children's Hospital; Clinical Ethics Consultant, The Lighthouse, Children and Families (pediatric hospice and respite care); Clinical Ethicist, Child, Adolescent, and Family Services, Douglas Mental Health University Institute; Chair, Clinical Ethics Committee, Shriner's Hospitals for Children (Canada). Dr. Carnevale is a founding member of the Board of Directors of the World Federation of Pediatric Intensive and Critical Care Societies (WFPICCS) and founding member of the Editorial Board of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine.

Dr. Natalia Varela is a professor at the Externado University of Colombia. She directs the family and children research department. Dr. Natalia´s research experience on child development involved an interdisciplinary approach that enabled her to acquire tools working on an array of projects involving at-risk children and families around the world (Colombia, Canada, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Burundi). Having worked with United Nations agencies and international NGOs, Dr. Natalia has gained expertise in academic research, as well as international development. Dr. Natalia works closely with the Kangaroo Foundation in Colombia on interesting research about premature birth and fatherhood. She holds a Ph.D. in Psychology from Laval University in Canada.