Associate Professor
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
School of Nursing
Box 1066
Edwardsville,
IL
USA
62026
Email:
lbernai@siue.edu
Biographical Sketch: Dr. Bernaix is an Associate Professor in the School of Nursing at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville. She has practiced in Maternal-Newborn nursing for 28 years, with the last 17 years devoted to teaching in that same focus area. Her primary program of research centers on breastfeeding promotion. She has conducted research that has examined the nurse’s role in support of the breastfeeding family and has tested interventions designed to improve breastfeeding outcomes in the NICU setting. Dr. Bernaix has presented her work at international and national conferences, published in various professional journals, and is a reviewer for two maternal-newborn nursing journals and one textbook publisher. She was awarded the 2003 AWHONN Hill Rom Maternal-Child Nursing Research Grant Award and has received other funding awards for her research and teaching projects. Additional research interests include prenatal lead exposure, adolescent pregnancy, obesity and physical activity in women across the lifespan, and children’s perceptions of nurses. Dr. Bernaix has presented her research at regional, national, and international conferences over the years.