Briana's Passion

Briana Blackwelder was an incredible midwife who died in a tragic car accident at the age of 29. She touched the lives of many women and children in the Salt Lake, UT area.  At a young age she had the desire to help women and was fascinated by the birth process after seeing her brother born into this world. She was compassionate, kind, patient and non-judgmental, possessing all the great virtues making her an unforgettable midwife, friend, sister, and daughter.

Photo by Alisha Stamper

Eight months before she died, Briana wanted to help serve the midwives in Guatemala. She went with a group of a medical professionals to do a 2 week training. As she spent time with the Mayan women she realized that our Western Medicine approach was not beneficial to the problems surrounding birth in their country. Briana was the only professional there with out-of-hospital birth experience and by the end of the week had won the trust of these women. She had learned much from these women and they impacted Briana in deep way. A way in which she wanted them to be able to receive high quality training, to be able to adequately practice their traditional out-of-hospital way of birthing.

Briana teaching Juana how to take blood pressure.

Briana was dedicated to find a way to help these women receive the proper quality training they needed. Sadly, she died before Midwife International was officially announced. We believe that not only would she be heading this cause for International Women's Day, but she would be working on her Spanish to be able to teach at the school located in the western highlands of Guatemala.



Briana's Words, Briana's Wisdom from Kate and Neil on Vimeo.