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My love for pregnancy, birth, babies and families has been a part of me for as long as I've been me. Growing up in Oregon to Argentinian parents, I was led to believe that pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding were all normal parts of being a human. I was confused by the more hushed attitudes regarding these things once I moved to the Northeast as a teen, and resolved to go to nursing school in order to work in women’s health care, promoting the normalcy and power of birth and parenthood. After 5 years working as Postpartum RN and IBCLC at New York Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell, I stepped away to devote myself to my own business, Born Knowing. As a doula, birth assistant, and lactation consultant, I am best able to use my clinical RN knowledge without any time limit to provide continuous, uninterrupted support to women and families in labor. Having recently joined forces with Elizabeth Perez, of Expecting Wonder, I am thrilled to expand my community and my offerings as part of a fantastic team of doulas.

I am a DONA-certified postpartum doula and certified lactation counselor. In the two-plus years that I have been supporting families in the fourth trimester period, I have worked with 30 new parents and their children. To expand on my lactation support training, I am training to be an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant and have internships in both hospital and private practice settings. My background has long been in supporting families, as a former nanny/child care provider and domestic violence advocate and case manager. I hold a BA in Sociology from Vassar College and have long-term aspirations of becoming a nurse-midwife.

I am a HypnoBirthing® Childbirth Educator, a Spinning Babies® Parent Educator, a hypnotherapist and a birth doula. I became a certified Hypnotist in 2009. I always knew the mind and body are interconnected. As I prepared for my own transition into motherhood, I discovered HypnoBirthing - the Mongan Method. Through this practice, and as I worked with parents, I organically grew into birth doula work. After witnessing a particularly difficult birth, I found and trained in the Spinning Babies approach. My doula work completely changed after that. I learnt how to assess when there was an imbalance and help balance the body before and during birth. I continue to learn with every new birth and every parent I work with. I am motivated by my own experiences and inspired by the experiences of the parents I work with.

I am an LCSW and PMH-C in private practice who specializes in women's reproductive and maternal mental health. I provide counseling and therapy for individuals and couples who have experienced infertility, anxiety and depression during pregnancy, loss, selective reduction, birth trauma, termination, baby blues and postpartum mood and anxiety disorders.

I am an active birth doula, childbirth educator, pre/postnatal yoga teacher and MUTU® Systems trainer. I have been assisting expecting families in the New York Metro area since 2003. What I have found from going to hundreds of births is that women are often under prepared for the 2nd Stage of Labor; The Pushing Part. Which may contribute to many hours of ineffective pushing, preventable tearing, medical interventions or sometimes a cesarean. I developed my Pushing Power classes to help inform and prepare for effective pushing and optimal recovery. I am passionate about helping moms prepare both body + mind for a positive birth experience and assist them to make a full recovery postpartum. I am a Certified Childbirth Educator (LAMAZE and Childbirth Education of Metropolitan New York, of which I am a current board member) and Doula. I am also Certified in both Pre/Postnatal Yoga and is a Certified MUTU® Systems Pro.

I believe in every individual’s right to informed consent through access to accurate information and education about options in our healthcare, including birth and infant feeding. I have been providing education and support to families in Northern New Jersey and NYC for 13 years, as a private practice provider, as the Breastfeeding Coordinator for WIC of Hudson County, and as a former Trustee on the NJ Breastfeeding Coalition. I breastfed my own daughter for two and a half years after a very challenging first three months. During our nursing experience, I learned a lot about the importance of honoring each nursing parent’s path and about the great deal of pressure and stress parents experience in our society, where there is very little support for families. I have trained women’s healthcare professionals in the hospital setting, WIC programs, Nurse Family Partnership, and Community Doula programs. I have provided education and support to hundreds of expectant families and lactating parents and have developed and taught childbirth preparation and wellness programs for corporate organizations like the Discovery Group.

I am an acupuncturist, herbalist, doula and mom! My passion is healing and I do my best in the service of women and their families to support health and wellness. I run a premier Chinese medicine clinic in NYC utilizing advanced methods in acupuncture and herbal remedies.

I have been a personal trainer for 12 years and have worked with every kind of client from the morbidly obese, to those recovering from an injury, to those just looking to stay in shape, to elite athletes training for competition. That said, none of my work has been as rewarding as the pre- and postnatal training I have done. I came to training through my martial arts practice and had no pre- or postnatal training experience when my very first client got pregnant. I went straight to Barnes and Nobles and after some time there, picked up "The Pilates Pregnancy" by Mari Winsor. I was hooked. I've always known I wanted to be a father (well okay, just since I was seven) and studying pregnancy from a personal training perspective was fascinating and something I became very passionate about. When it came time to renew my CPT certification, I opted for the Women's Health certification that covered pre- and postnatal training. I have maintained the certification and taken the course whenever it has been offered through the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM). Over the years, I have helped six women (including my wife) through their pregnancies. Once they have been cleared by their doctor to begin working out again, I have then helped them regain their bodies. I am completely in awe of what women's bodies are capable of and struck by the fact that no two pregnancies are, or will ever be, the same. My wife and I made the decision that having a home birth was the best option for us and after being there every step of the way for the 15 hours of labor I can honestly tell you there was no greater moment in my life than when my son was born. My wife was incredible. Our midwife actually told me while my wife was pushing that "she'd never seen a first time mom instinctively know how to push like that." Now don't get me wrong, my wife did ALL the work, but I would like to think all of the work we had done together getting her ready to push played some small role in how well prepared she was when the time came.

Zina’s personal birthing experience began 26 years ago when she had her first daughter and then she went on to have seven more children. In 2006 she developed a passion for Massage Therapy and Doula work. She found herself on a healing path and decided to study Reiki and then became a Reiki Master. She has earned other certifications in Pre & Postnatal Yoga and Thai Massage. She enjoys being a Massage Therapy Instructor, and hosting workshops for women’s empowerment in New York and New Jersey. Her passion is empowering women to find their inner voice. Helping women to define their personal practice with yoga, meditation, and using tools like essential oils are just a few ways that she supports prenatal and postnatal moms to gather and know their inner power to deliver their babies. She’s passionate about helping women to make informed decisions for themselves and their families. Zina believes there is a physical, emotional and spiritual experience that happens during the birthing journey for woman, and her goal is to help all moms and their babies find their special connection from inside the womb during the pregnancy and beyond

I came to birth work on the other side of giving birth to my two babies in 2005 and 2008. Along that journey, my eyes were opened to a few things: 1) how beautiful, normal, and transformative the process of birth is but 2) how too many women and couples have a negative or, worse, traumatic experience in giving birth due to the way our U.S. maternal health care system operates. On the other side of being fortunate enough to have become well-equipped to navigate this environment and therefore having positively transformative experiences with both of my babies' births, I "caught the birth bug" and wanted to be an instrument of encouragement and advocacy for women and families toward amazing, positive birth experiences, and I've been joyfully doing birth work ever since 2010. One area of particular passion I have in my teaching is placing specific emphasis on helping couples to deepen and enrich their relationships in pregnancy to be strategically positioned in a healthy way for the challenges and stresses having a baby can put on a marriage/committed relationship. See Yelp reviews under "Birth Matters NYC".