Dr. Sara Alvarado
Naturopathic Doctor and Licensed Midwife
Hailing from the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, I’ve wanted to be a health care provider for as long as I can remember, and most of what I did in my formative years was aimed at discovering what kind of practitioner and human I wanted to be. During college, I worked as a health educator and a labor organizer for a health care workers union. My heart has always been in grassroots organizing and my college years were filled with this.
After graduating from college, I spent a year working as a case manager with AmeriCorps for individuals experiencing homelessness in Austin, Texas and strategizing about how to best provide quality healthcare for families and increase access to such care. This led me to Naturopathic Medicine and Midwifery at Bastyr University. Rainy City provided me with my first birth center and home birth experiences as a midwifery student, and since I’ve joined Rainy City as a Licensed Midwife and Naturopathic Doctor, I’ve helped to welcome more than 500 babies.
Aubrei Ackerman MSM
Licensed Midwife
My path to midwifery has been a circuitous one. Interested in birth work, I joined the Volunteer Doula program at the University of Washington Medical Center. Here I attended my first birth! I eventually ended up running this program and grew to love the experience of walking into someone’s labor not knowing them at all.
As my passion for healthcare grew, I discovered midwifery and learned more about out of hospital birth. By attending home and birth center deliveries alongside midwives, I started expanding my birth experience and knew I had found my North Star. Later, I was led to Bastyr University where I earned my Masters of Science in Midwifery. Since graduation, I have worked in reproductive justice and public health sectors and have been a fierce advocate for reproductive rights.
Rainy City was one of my preceptor sites as a student and the place where I became a midwife. I have welcomed more than 300 babies and am thrilled to be providing care at Rainy City.
Brooke Prudhomme
Certified Professional and Licensed Midwife
I cannot isolate the moment when I knew I was going to be a midwife, but now, when I look back it all makes perfect and unexplainable sense. The wisdom held in each moment, the magic of an open heart, all of my experiences as a woman, the endless support of my Mother, all inform and infuse what I bring to my practice as a midwife.
Dynamic opportunities have allowed me to develop impeccable clinical midwifery skills. I devoted eight years to training in a home birth practice with an incredible midwife, Amy Banbury of Trillium Womancare. I invested some time moving through an RN program while I was working as a home birth midwife with Dr. Nikia Grayson as we worked to develop and build the first birth center in Memphis, CHOICES: Memphis Center for Reproductive Health. I am so humbled and proud to have been working in Memphis as a midwife at a time when we were proving to Memphis, a city with the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in the country (not anymore!!!) that accessible midwifery care can help reduce those fatal outcomes by half.
Relocating to the PNW in 2021, I briefly served as co-director for a birth center in Portland, Oregon before accepting the role as director of midwifery at a practice in Seattle. After two years there, on one very sunny February day, I met the team at Rainy City Midwifery and I found them to be the most curious, thoughtful, brilliant triad of midwives. I am so excited to be here, working with this group.
Recently, I was elected to the Midwifery Association of Washington State’s board (MAWS), and I am having a blast learning to navigate the legislative aspect of midwifery and how to advocate for our profession and the family’s that choose midwifery care with the Washington board.
I also am a passionate volunteer facilitator for a program called Transforming White Privilege for Midwives who were just approved for MEAC continuing education hours. Finally, after six years in development, I will be launching a virtual midwifery care/coaching space in June of 2024 called, OVA Sanctum.
Justine Guarda
Office Manager
I came to Rainy City after spending 5 years at home with my children, Eva and Luca, both the result of beautiful home births. My husband, Fernando, is originally from Mexico and we’re doing our best to raise bilingual kiddos!
Most days find the Guarda Vazquezs keeping up with the general frantic pace of a full family life that includes swim meets, t ball games, camping, general exploring and Sunday night dinners with grandparents, aunt and uncles.
Before becoming a full-time mommy, I spent 8 years working for an environmental non-profit here in Seattle.
I grew up in a variety of locales including Italy, Germany and Texas and something I really appreciate about the NW is the open-mindedness found here. We are so fortunate in Washington to have access to safe and affordable home birth.