Rebecca Benfield is an Associate Professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas School of Nursing. She has practiced as a Certified Nurse-Midwife for over 28 years in a variety of settings; a tertiary medical center, community hospital, freestanding birth center and Indian Health Hospital in Tuba City Arizona. Her research includes the use of psychophysiological measures of anxiety, pain, neurostress hormones, and external uterine EMG use to investigate the effects of water immersion and intravascular fluid expansion in term labor and in Veterans with PTSD symptoms and comorbid depression, anxiety and pain. Specializing in Midwifery, Dr. Benfield interest areas have included the effects of anxiety and pain interventions (hydrotherapy and epidural analgesia) on uterine contractility, labor progress and stress related neurohormones. Dr. Benfield was funded by NINR for a K01 Mentored Independent Research Scientist Development Award in 2003 entitled “The Effects of Hydrotherapy on Anxiety and Pain in Labor.” She has precepted a variety of students including nursing and medical as well as interns and off service residents and directed Nurse-Midwifery Educational Programs at the University of Washington and East Carolina University. Dr. Benfield received her MSN from the University of Kentucky with a specialty in Nurse-Midwifery and a PhD in Nursing from the University of South Carolina.