Birth Emergency Skills Training for Out-of-Hospital Providers (BEST)™ is a certification course that prepares out-of-hospital midwives to manage obstetrical emergencies with greater confidence and proficiency.

Are you prepared for the unexpected?

Out of hospital midwives have a low-risk clientele and seldom encounter emergencies, but when crisis occurs, lives hang in the balance! It is difficult to remain proficient in skills so seldom practiced; yet your clients rely on your expertise in an emergency.

Give your clients your BEST!

Aviva Institute introduces Birth Emergency Skills Training, an online course that sharpens your response to out-of-hospital obstetrical emergencies, including:

• Pain and bleeding in pregnancy
• Hypertension
• Maternal Shock, Trauma, Syncope and Cardiac Arrest
• Preterm Labor
• Non-Reassuring Fetal Heart rate
• Shoulder Dystocia
• Malpresentations
• Undiagnosed Twins
• Postpartum Hemorrhage
• Neonatal Resuscitation

Best will increase your ability to act decisively in an emergency and to see it though until resolved, or until the woman is under physician management.

Aviva Institute offers BEST Certification 100% online using the same standard of excellence as our other distance courses. You will take this course over a weekend from your own home, with a cohort group of other out-of-hospital providers. Meet other midwives and learn about how they practice as you work through the material at your own pace. View power points, participate in forum discussions, and proceed through lesson modules. Certification is granted at the successful completion of the course. Certification is valid for three years.

BEST is not a basic course designed for midwifery students; it assumes a broad database of knowledge in the areas covered. This course is limited to those providers who are currently attending births as primary or primary under supervision.

Download and print brochure here

About the Textbook: Birth Emergency Skills Training: Manual for Out-of-Hospital Midwives balances a friendly tone and visual appeal with authoritative and clinically useful information. It is loaded with mnemonics and other memory aids. The author is an artist and photographer and has richly illustrated the text. All information reflects standards of practice distilled from prominent medical, EMS, midwifery, and nursing texts and journals. Birth clinicians of all levels will benefit from the latest information on a wide range of contingencies, memorably presented.

Please note: Text must be read PRIOR to taking the course (320 pages).

About the Author:  Bonnie Urquhart Gruenberg is a certified nurse-midwife and women's health nurse practitioner with a master's degree from the University of Pennsylvania. She has worked as an urban EMT and paramedic, maternity nurse, and certified nurse-midwife. Her midwifery experience includes training with a busy home-birth practice in the heart of Amish country and practice in tertiary medical centers. She has also authored Essentials of Prehospital Maternity Care (Prentice Hall, 2005), and Hoofprints in the Sand: Wild Horses of the Atlantic Coast (Eclipse Press, 2003). She is an artist and photographer, and has illustrated all of her books.

Your tuition includes a pdf e-book of the Birth Emergency Skills Training, Manual for Out-Of-Hospital Midwives. In addition, students may purchase the print version for $36 plus S&H from www.birthguru.com. Not only is this textbook the backbone of the BEST course, but also it is valuable as a stand-alone reference.

Recommended: Emergency Guide to Obstetric Complications by Daphne Singingtree, CPM. This is a laminated flip chart to keep in your birth bag.

CEUS: BEST has been approved for 9.5 hours of MEAC Continuing Education Units.  1.5 Pharmacology Hours. 1 ACNM CEU (10 hours)  

To Register: Fax copy of your relevant license/certification to 1-800-584-6235 then click and pay the tuition. You will be emailed all the information you need to create an account and log into the course area and take the demo course to familiarize yourself with the online software we use. You will not get access to the course until the day before it opens on. If you are a practicing midwife who is not licensed or a CPM, please email for approval prior to paying for course. Students in the primary under supervision part of their training can fax in a letter from their preceptor with a copy of their preceptors credentials. RNs who are attending out of hospital births are eligible.  

Tuition: $168.00 (includes ebook in pdf form) Approved preceptors get a 25% discount off tuition , please email for a coupon code prior to registering.

To become an approved preceptor visit here

Dates: 
August 30-31, 2008 Registration closes August 25 to allow participants time to read the book.
September 27-28,2008 Registration closes Sept 20 to allow participants time to read the book.
Oct 25- 26, 2008 Registration closes Oct 16 to allow participants time to read the book.
December 5-6, 2008 Registration closes Nov 28 to allow participants time to read the book

Schedule and Time Commitment: This is a very intensive weekend of sixteen online hours of materials. This does not include the time reading the text prior to the course. Plan just like if you were going to an conference, be off call, and have nothing else scheduled for the weekend of the course. It will open early on Friday and stay open through Monday, however the instructor will only be available on the weekend. You need to pass by at least 80% in order to get your certificate.

Computer Requirements: While it is not required that you have taken previous online courses, you must be experienced in basic computer tasks, for software requirements click here