Midwife Bios
Audra Karp
Audra Karp is a Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) who serves women in the Boston area and beyond. She began to attend births in 1998 assisting homebirth midwives in New York state, working as a case manager for pregnant and parenting teenagers, and offering doula services in the hospital. She is a skilled Seattle Midwifery School graduate with experiences in a variety of roles, in diverse populations of women at home, in the hospital, and at freestanding birth centers.
Audra brings to her practice business and organizational skills, as well as a strong herbal and nutritional background. She studied medicinal herbs, managed an herbal products business, and has also worked as a billing specialist for a midwifery billing service. She combines these skills with her midwifery passion, compassion, and understanding of women’s health issues.
Audra seeks to provide an educational and empowering experience for women and their families. Her goals are to assist women in taking their health into their own hands, help them learn about the process they are going through, and inspire them to make healthier changes in their lives for themselves and their families.
Audra has a one year old daughter born with the help of midwives who keeps her busy along with her midwifery practice.
Doula Bios
Sarafina Kennedy
Sarafina has been a doula for 4 years. She was trained through the Association of Labor Assistants and Childbirth Educators in 2004 and has been passionately supporting women in childbirth ever since. Sarafina holds a masters degree in Sociology and Gender Studies from Brandeis University, where her studies were focused on childbirth and motherhood. She is currently enrolled in Birthwise Midwifery school, where she is training as a homebirth midwife, and she has apprenticed and assisted several homebirth midwives in the greater Boston area for the past 2 years. Sarafina is a certified Hypnobirthing instructor and is being trained through Boston Area Childbirth Educators to teach general childbirth education. She is available to teach both privately and in group settings. Sarafina believes that childbirth is a crucial and powerful time in the life of a family and that women as well as their partners should feel fully supported with education, advocacy and love.Erin Sweeney
Erin Sweeney is an experienced massage therapist, birth doula, and educator. She is a graduate of Regis College with a B.A. in Biology and Fine Art. With a deep love for art and science, she went on to train at the Muscular Therapy Institute of Cambridge, MA, graduating in 2000, and then pursued
advanced training in orthopedic massage, myofascial work, and peri-natal massage therapy. In addition to birthing her professional massage practice, BodyWise Therapeutic Massage, Erin also taught at MTI for several years, offering Technique, Sports Massage, and Approaches to Injury-Related Tension. With a strong background in sports massage and athletics, Erin was invited to her first birth in 2005, where she fell in love with a new “elite athlete” – the laboring woman. In that moment, she felt a distinct calling to shift her professional practice and pursue more learning and experience around pregnancy and birth. She went on to take the birth doula training with the Association of Labor Assistants and Childbirth Educators (ALACE), for which she now serves on the Board of Directors, and quickly, grew her busy doula practice, MotherWise. She has had the honor of seeing many babies born in various settings, including home, birth center, hospital, (even hotel!), and has found a deep trust for the natural birthing process. She draws upon her collective experience, both as a massage therapist and a labor assistant to help educate, empower, and support women and their partners as they journey into their birth experiences. She is passionate about nurturing strong mothers and gentle births.
