Heather Bradford is a Seattle-based midwife educator and clinician with a passion for midwifery and women’s health. She strives to expand and diversify the midwifery and WHNP workforce, address inequities within health care, and improve perinatal outcomes.
She currently serves as the Assistant Program Director for the Nurse-Midwifery/Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner and Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner Programs at Georgetown University School of Nursing. Clinically, she has been a midwife since 2002 and has provided full-scope midwifery at EvergreenHealth in Kirkland, WA, now in a per diem capacity. She has attended almost 800 births.
She has advocated for advanced practice nurses at both the state and federal legislative front. Under her leadership in coalition with other nurse leaders, WA ARNPs acquired the capacity to prescribe without a joint practice agreement. While Chair of the American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM) Government Affairs Committee, nurse-midwives achieved equitable reimbursement under Medicare Part B services. She became a Fellow of ACNM in 2011. She has published articles in peer-reviewed journals and chapters in midwifery and women’s health textbooks. She was the Associate Editor of Clinical Practice Guidelines for Midwifery and Women’s Health.
She is currently pursuing a PhD in nursing science from Vanderbilt University School of Nursing, studying why birthing persons with higher body weights are more likely to birth via cesarean section, focusing on weight bias among certified nurse-midwives.
