Dr. Rieko Kishi (Facilitator of the "With Women" Initiative)

Dr. Rieko Kishi has been a Nurse-Midwife in Japan since 1998. She has published and presented internationally on the translation of the doula model of care to Japanese culture. Dr. Kishi’s research interests include midwifery, perinatal care, breastfeeding, preventing child abuse, international nurse migration, and primary health care. Dr. Kishi received her doctorate in nursing science from the University of Illinois at Chicago, Illinois in 2009 where she held an American Association of University Women (AAUW) International Doctorate Fellowship from 2007-2008. Her dissertation title was “Japanese translation of the U.S. ‘Listening to Mothers-II’ questionnaire”. She is the recipient of numerous grants and awards for her work.

Dr. Kishi is an Advisory Board Member for HealthConnect One, a community-based Doula Leadership Institute. She is presently a Clinical Nurse Midwife at Showa University Northern Yokohama Hospital and Co-Principle Researcher in the Doula Laboratory at Child Research Net (http://www.crn.or.jp/) in Tokyo, Japan. She is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant.

Dr. Kishi facilitates the With Women Bamboo Bridge initiative that will seek to promote the sharing of healing traditions, build communication, and explore opportunities for collaboration between nurses and community healers such as doulas and traditional birth attendants. She brings her knowledge of primary health care and maternal health to this initiative in which she will support growing an awareness of the learning methods and health-related content that can be applied across healthcare fields, languages and cultures.

Email: Rieko@BambooBridge.org