MEET OUR FAMILY

Nina graduated from the University of Arizona in 1997 with a Master of Science in Speech Language Pathology and became an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) in 2010. She is a dual certified Bilingual Speech-Language Pathologist (English-Spanish), and an IBCLC, with over 20 years experience. She specializes in pediatric and infant feeding and swallowing disorders, with an emphasis on helping breastfeeding dyads meet their breastfeeding goals.  Nina also specializes in assisting infants struggling with bottle feeding, transitioning to solids and weaning off of feeding tubes. Nina is passionate about helping infants and their families whose feeding is impacted by prematurity, neurological deficits, anatomical issues (including tongue-tie/lip-tie and cleft lip/palate) as well as those babies who just got off to a difficult start. In addition to teaching and lecturing throughout Arizona, Nina has been invited to speak nationally and internationally to educate other healthcare professionals and families on topics such as low maternal milk supply, slow infant weight gain, tongue-tie, infant feeding, dysphagia, breastfeeding, and transitioning to solids.  When she's not working, Nina enjoys hiking, swimming, running and spending time with her three daughters, grand baby and two dogs.

Crissi is a Registered Nurse and an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant. Crissi is a native Tucsonan who graduated from the University of Arizona in 2009 with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree. She spent her earlier career days working in Occupational Therapy with a focus on Pediatric Feeding. She has been providing postpartum and newborn care to Tucson families for more than 15 years. Combining her education and skill set, Crissi brings a unique approach to helping Moms and babies address their breastfeeding needs. She is especially passionate about assisting with more medically complex breastfeeding issues including babies born with special needs, prematurity, and issues related to anatomical differences such as tongue tie/lip tie or cleft lip and palate. Over the years Crissi has had the pleasure of being invited to present to many members of the medical community on the subject of breastfeeding. She has a strong desire to educate the community to better serve Tucson families. When she isn’t working to help families with new babies, she loves spending time traveling and being outdoors with her husband and her two children.

Beth is an Occupational Therapist, International Board-Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC), and a Certified Neonatal Therapist who specializes in establishing oral feeding and development. After too many cold winters attending school in Chicago and St. Louis, she and her husband decided that Tucson would be a great place to live and start a family and have been here since 2008. She has been an OT since 2008, worked with children since 2014, and an IBCLC since 2017. Beth has worked in adult rehabilitation, acute care, pediatric intensive care and neonatal intensive care settings.  She has extensive experience with infants who have complex medical history including neurologic, cardiac, genetic, or a preterm diagnosis.  She is in awe of how intrinsically motivated babies are to develop and engage in learning new skills. She loves sharing the joy of helping families work toward their feeding and developmental goals.  She also loves swimming, yoga, reading, running, and trying to keep up with her two kids.  Beth is excited and delighted to be a part of the M&H team!

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Ceit is a Bilingual (English-Portuguese) International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) and CAPPA Certified Childbirth Educator. Ceit is an native Tucsonan who earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in 2003 from the University of Arizona. Ceit has worked in the field of Child and Maternal Services since 2011, specializing in pregnancy wellness, early childhood development, infant feeding, and childbirth education. Previous to joining Milk and Honey, Ceit worked extensively as a childbirth educator and lactation consultant for a youth-focused non-profit organization, with an emphasis on neurological development and high-risk clientele. Ceit has traveled the state of Arizona providing professional development to those working with pregnant and parenting teens. In 2016, she became a Capacitar Wellness Protocols Practitioner, enabling her to facilitate perinatal trauma healing in the Tucson Community. Ceit’s passion for assisting families through pregnancy, birth and postpartum periods continues to grow, with particular regard to the breastfeeding dyad. Her time outside of work is spent enjoying family time, getting outdoors and exercising.

Christina is an Occupational Therapist and an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant who specializes in infant and early childhood development and feeding skills. She has been practicing pediatric Occupational Therapy for over 10 years and received her lactation certification in 2015. Christina has extensive experience in the Neonatal and Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, Early Intervention, and Outpatient settings. Her passion is working with feeding for all babies including breast, bottle, solids and tube feeding. She especially enjoys working with children with complex medical needs and varied diagnoses including genetic, neurologic, prematurity, craniofacial, swallowing and GI. She worked in the Tucson Community from 2012-2017 in both hospital and community settings before moving to Asheville, NC where she provided home based feeding therapy and developmental services to children birth-3 from 2017-2021.  Christina has now returned to Tucson, her forever home, and is very excited to return to the M&H team and provide feeding therapy and developmental services for Tucson families.

Loren has been practicing as an Occupational Therapist since 1995 after she graduated with a Master’s degree from Texas Woman’s University, Houston. She has had experience working in a variety of settings including acute care, outpatient and home health. Loren is passionate about working with infants and young children and has dedicated her practice to the NICU setting. At Milk and Honey, she focuses her specialty in feeding and developmental activity. Loren is a Certified Neonatal Therapist (CNT) and was one of the first Occupational Therapists to receive this certification in Arizona. She also has certification in Neonatal Touch and Massage and is in the process of pursuing certification as a Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) in order to provide the best-care available for infants and their families. When she isn’t working, Loren loves spending time with her family including her two very active dogs. She is an avid cyclist, a die-hard U of A Wildcat, and enjoys all the splendors of Arizona.

Sarah is a certified nurse-midwife specializing in breastfeeding and lactation medicine and perinatal mental health. Her first degree was in biology from U.C. Berkeley, and she trained in midwifery at Oregon Health and Science University. After becoming a midwife in 2014, she caught babies both in and out of the hospital, and has lived and worked in rural and urban New Mexico and Arizona. Sarah has always been drawn to midwifery’s potential for advocacy, addressing health inequity, “being with” families, and engaging in true shared decision making and informed consent. Sarah loves supporting the community, providing evidence-based lactation care, and providing comprehensive and collaborative care for lactation complications and complex lactation concerns. She brings the midwifery model of care to lactation, and loves working collaboratively with her team of multidisciplinary lactation experts at Milk & Honey. Sarah is involved in lactation efforts at the national level through the American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM), is involved in the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine (ABM), and is the co-chair of the AZ ACNM advocacy committee. She is also adjunct faculty at the University of Rochester’s lactation fellowship program (LILAC), and is working on a PhD at the University of Arizona College of Nursing. Sarah is a mama to a small 5-year-old boy with a big personality and their three opinionated cats. Yoga and laughter keep her grounded.  

Alice has lived in Tucson nearly her whole life, She has three amazing grown children – Lindsey, Grace, and Steven, who she could not be more proud of. She also has a beloved golden retriever named Peyton, who is very naughty but brings her great joy at the same time. She loves the ocean, being outdoors, hiking, and exercising. She has worked with insurance billing for many years, and is very grateful to part of this awesome community, surrounded by strong, beautiful women.

I have always been passionate about early childhood education. I spent five years working with young children to teach them fundamental skills and, like myself, develop a love for school and passion for learning and growing. I specialized in preschool aged children to prepare for their kindergarten milestones. In 2022, I discovered I would soon meet my other passion and deep love, my son. After becoming pregnant, I decided to take a step back from teaching to fully invest in learning how to become a new mommy. Educating myself was and continues to still be very important to me which is what made the opportunity to work for Milk and Honey so astounding. At Milk and Honey I was able to educate myself about all things baby related! I also learned the goals I wanted to set for myself as a mom and for my family to be able to give my son everything he could need in his life. I welcomed my son, Abel, at the beginning of January in 2023 and have since been loving my new life and soaking in every memory already created with my family. I am most excited about turning my hobbies such as watching movies, reading books, spending time with friends and family into a shared love with my baby as he continues to grow.

As long as Natalily can remember she has been passionate about birth and reproductive health. She is a birth and postpartum doula. Being at Milk and Honey felt like a natural place to be serving a community so near and dear to her heart! Natalily is a compassionate and loving force who believes that birth and postpartum support is potent and vital. She fiercely believes in the inherent strength, power, and resilience of people and feels honored to be in service to them, as pregnancy, birth breastfeeding, and postpartum are such an intimate and transformative experience.