Erica Kroll is a certified breastfeeding educator and peer counselor, Whole Birth® yoga educator, childbirth educator, doula and a clinical herbalist. After the birth of her daughter Violet, Erica began pursuing a career supporting women to have satisfying, healthy births to support their health with natural and effective alternatives. Erica has run a private practice as a doula, birth advocate and educational counselor since 1999, and as a clinical herbalist since 2003. Erica provided breastfeeding education and support at the Boone County Health Dept. in Columbia Missouri for 2 years and developed the breastfeeding education and support classes currently being taught there.

Erica founded and developed With Awareness, LLC an education and service oriented business to support natural therapies and healthy alternatives through education and counseling. Herbal classes are offered in wildcrafting, gardening, medicine making, using herbs for family health, the childbearing year and more. Erica teaches Whole Birth® Yoga, a mindfulness based prenatal yoga and support class that has helped hundreds of women come to trust in their body's innate ability to birth and offers birth educational counseling and body centered hypnosis for birth on an individual basis. Couples yoga and wholistic childbirth education classes are other classes that Erica currently offers.

Erica developed herbal product businesses from which she formulates herbal products from the ground up harvesting the plants from her surrounding woods and fields as well as from her own substantial organic herb gardens. . Erica creates these simple, organic herbal products in response to a lack of pesticide and chemical free products.

As an herbalist, Erica is primarily self taught through her own use of the herbs, readings and relationship with the plants, but has also studied with Kahla Wheeler of Prairie Wise herb school and Michael Tierra of Planetary Herbology and has studied at the feet of many other accomplished herbalists such as Mathew Wood and Susun Weed. She is an active member of the American Herbalist Guild (AHG) and served as the chair of the AHG council of students for 2 years.

A lifelong student of birth and natural health with herbs and wholistic counseling, Erica is currently certifying with Gayle Peterson, PhD; author of "Birthing Normally" and "An Easier Childbirth" and who is the mentor of such pioneering women in the birth movement including Pamela England ("Birthing from Within") and Robin Sale (Whole Birth® Yoga). Erica continues her work with Robin Sale of Whole Birth® Resources including 4 yoga/mindfulness trainings and recently co-taught a training with Robin here in Columbia Missouri.

Erica is currently a graduate student in Counseling Psychology at MU. She is also in the process of developing a doula training and a wholistic childbirth education series.