Our practice works with a shared care model, which means that all members of our team are your midwives. You will meet each of us several times throughout your pregnancy, and one of us will be with you in labour and at your birth. All of our midwives are comfortable with both hospital birth and home birth in normal, healthy situations.

Who We Are

Lyanne Quirt, RM (She/Her)

Beth Smit, RM (She/Her)

Beth is originally from Nanaimo, and has lived on Vancouver Island most of her life. She left in 2003 to attend McMaster University’s Midwifery Education Program, and graduated in 2007.

Beth practiced as a midwife in the friendly Northern Ontario town of Sault Ste Marie before getting homesick and coming back to the Victoria area in 2010. Beth has worked in a solo midwife model and in a group midwifery practice, and is excited about working as a team at Arbutus to get the best of both worlds: lots of time and visits with each woman and family so they can get to know each other well before labour, and back up if two women labour at once or one midwife has been up all night.

Beth loves the midwifery model of care in BC because of the opportunity for personal connection between midwives and women, and because of all the choices the midwifery model gives women with respect to their care and where they give birth. Outside of midwifery, Beth is the mother of two children, a son born in 2009 and a daughter born in 2012. Beth has a passion for the outdoors, whether that means working in her garden, or hiking and camping around Vancouver Island when she’s not on call.

Astrid Fritzsche, RM (She/Her)
– Astrid is currently on a temporary leave

Astrid is a second generation settler of immigrant Dutch and German grandparents, and though transplanted, has been home on BC’s shores since she visited as a child. She is grateful and aware of her position on the unceded territory of the Lkwungen people.

Astrid is a graduate of the Midwifery program through the faculty of Medicine at UBC, and came to midwifery with a prior degree in genetics, biopsychology and gender studies. She has spent almost all of her professional career in Victoria, and has worked in a variety of practices and team structures over the last 14 years. Astrid enjoys excellent relationships with our interprofessional colleagues – the nurses, obstetricians and family doctors – in the hospital, and is equally comfortable and supportive of home birth. She is a strong believer in facilitating pregnant folks to find their community connections and resources in their social and community circles, and defining chosen family for themselves in functional and supportive ways. She is a founding member of the Trans and Queer Pregnancy and Parenting group in Victoria.

Astrid identifies her critical foundation for doing the crazy work of midwifery as her supportive family: her chosen family friends, her eco-hippie parents, her outspoken and devoted partner and her four tolerant kids, who are between 2 and 18 years old. When not driving her electric car around the city on the way to clinic, births or visits, she can be found tending to honeybees, hiking up mountains, reading about conflict resolution and ranting about – and forever practicing- raising feminist boys.

Rowan Kennedy-Macdonald, RM (She/Her)
– Rowan is currently on a maternity leave

Rowan was born at home, outside, in Paradise Valley, BC. Her birth was attended by a midwife and Rowan believes this positive origin story has always kindled in her a deep appreciation of midwifery and of birth. After a childhood in the UK, Rowan came back to Canada and cozied in to all of the wonders of the BC West Coast.

After completing her Bachelors degree in Child and Youth Care, through the University of Victoria, Rowan spent several years working and learning within communities who were experiencing limitations to accessing care. Primarily working in shelters, transition homes, detox facilities and safe-consumption sites. During this time, she started working more within the world of reproductive justice, supporting people who were pregnant and struggling to access supportive care, as well as facilitating sexual/reproductive health and education groups for young people. From there, Rowan decided she needed more skills and resources to offer to the folks she was working with and midwifery was such a clear choice of direction. Rowan is a graduate of the Midwifery Program at the University of British Columbia. She is grateful to work on the unceded territory of the Lkwungen people and thoughtful about what this means in her practice as a midwife. Rowan is passionate about creating access to safe, respectful and dignified care for all communities, while working in a way which honours the individual’s resilience and strength…with a large focus on joy and delight in the process!

Rowan lives in the Quw’utsun (Cowichan) Valley, on a big piece of land which she feels lucky to call home and share with an incredible group of humans including her partner, her parents, granny and some dear friends…Plus, many dogs and cats and chickens and beehives and a whole lot of garden veggies.

Leila Kent, RM (She/Her)

Ashley Broadbent, RM (She/Her)

Ashley Broadbent has been a practicing Midwife since 2008 in the
Ottawa Valley.
Ashley graduated from the Midwifery Education Program at
Laurentian University, and started practicing midwifery in September 2008. She did
her first year with the Community Care Midwives in Oshawa Ontario and
continued her practice with Gentle Beginnings Midwifery in Ottawa. Previously to
midwifery, she completed an Environmental Science degree at the University of
Ottawa. Ashley also has a background in herbal medicine and a vast knowledge of
vitamins and herbal supplements. 
Ashley looks forward to joining Arbutus Midwives and working with the women of this
beautiful community.

Alexa Gordon, MOA (She/Her)

Midwifery Students

We are a teaching practice – midwifery and medical students may be involved in your care from time to time. They will always be supervised, and they will never do anything beyond their level of competence. Most clients find that working with students is a very positive experience, but please speak to one of the midwives privately if you would prefer not to involve students in some or all aspects of your care.

When the team is very busy, a midwife is sick, or additional support is needed for other reasons, Arbutus Midwives regularly makes use of our Community Support Midwife, MJ Harris. MJ is not an official team member, but if needed, we would like our clients to be familiar with her and the services she offers.