Perinatal science communicator, birth educator, and speaker
We already know how to make birth safer, more joyful, and less damaging to everyone in the room
Getting that knowledge into practice—for families, into birth rooms, and into the organizations that decide how care is delivered—is the work I’ve spent 20 years building toward.
Leading an organization? Keep reading.
Discovering Circadian Health for Pregnancy, Birth, and Postpartum
Nikko’s story
I came to this work because I couldn’t look away.
I was pre-med, planning on obstetrics, until I understood that a surgeon at the end of a pregnancy isn’t where the leverage is. The decisions that determine whether birth is joyful or traumatizing, whether a mother recovers well or doesn’t, whether a baby’s first hours build a strong foundation or a disrupted one happen long before anyone needs an operating room. I wanted to be upstream of the damage.
So I became a doula. A science writer. An educator. I built a practice reading, translating, and teaching the circadian and quantum biology of pregnancy, labor, and postpartum, which are the mechanisms that explain what goes right when birth goes right, and what gets disrupted when it doesn’t. The science is documented in peer-reviewed literature. It just hasn’t reached most families or the practitioners who serve them. That gap is what I work in.
What I do has a name: science communication. I read primary research across circadian biology, quantum biology, and perinatal physiology, and I make it usable for mothers preparing for labor, birth attendants updating their practices, a hospital designing a birth suite, a conference audience who’ll carry it into their communities. I don’t run clinical trials. I translate the ones that exist and train practitioners to do research about what they are doing in the real-world settings of everyday practice. My work accelerates research translation so patients get better care, faster.
I’m a Board Certified Quantum Biology Practitioner, Director of Research at the Institute of Applied Quantum Biology, and founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Applied Quantum Biology and the Applied Quantum Biology Practice Based Research Network. I’ve worked in the birth world for fifteen years, serving home birth families primarily, which means I’ve seen what birth looks like when the environment actually supports it. I’ve spoken on more than twenty podcasts, guest taught across the birth world and beyond, and published weekly at Brighter Days, Darker Nights since 2021. I live in Southern Oregon with my husband and our five children, which means I’m also living this research in real time.
If someone sent you here or you landed here from a podcast, social media, or community appearance, welcome! You’re in the right place.
Three paths to understanding perinatal circadian and quantum biology applications
Choose your track from the options below—I look forward to working with you!
You’re pregnant, postpartum, or preparing.
Your body knows how to do this. The light environment in your home, in the birth room, in those first weeks with a newborn either supports your biology or works against it. This isn’t fringe science. It’s documented, accessible, and practical. Families who’ve made small changes to their light environment report sleeping better than expected, recovering faster, and having babies calm from the first night. You don’t need to overhaul your life. The changes that make a measurable difference are often the simplest ones.
You work with childbearing families.
The circadian and quantum biology of fertility, pregnancy, labor, breastfeeding, newborn development, and postpartum mood belongs in your practice and most training programs don’t yet teach it. Doulas, midwives, nurses, lactation consultants, childbirth educators: practitioners who’ve added this lens say they carry it into everything they do afterward. My trainings cover the mechanisms, the evidence, and the clinical application for people who intend to use it professionally.
You lead an organization.
Conference organizers, training program directors, healthcare educators, wellness organizations: the circadian biology of perinatal care has direct implications for clinical outcomes, patient experience, curriculum design, and staff health. I work with institutional teams through keynote speaking, curriculum development, and research advisory. Your team or community will gain something they can use and something they’ll pass on and that will influence how they think about every aspect of their work and life going forward.
Brighter Days, Darker Nights
My Substack publication covers the circadian and quantum biology of pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and the practitioners who support families through those seasons of life. The circadian principle behind my publication’s name is simple: bright light by day, darkness at night. The science that runs behind it is considerably deeper. Dr. Martin Moore-Ede of the Circadian Light Research Center calls it “the best Substack on how circadian health is vital for fertility, pregnancy and motherhood.”