Doula from Within: In Person Training
Fall 2025 dates coming soon…
Duluth, Minnesota
If you are interested in becoming a trained birth doula, get on our waitlist for future dates here.
Bring heart and soul
Bring heart and soul into childbirth preparation and support in our 5-day in-person doula training, which combines a unique embodied retreat with dynamic hands-on and interactive learning to bring you a workshop experience like no other.
We honor the knowledge and lived experience of the mentor and the parent, and we challenge trainees to shift their lens towards self-compassion, flexibility, and resilience.
Five day training (four full days and one half day) with pre and post self paced digital learning.
$1,400
(no fee payment plans available)
This isn’t just a weekend workshop.
Dive deep into childbirth preparation and support, tapping into ancient inner knowing in conjunction with evidence-based modern knowing, and learn to provide meaningful guidance to those in their childbearing years. Enjoy a space created for intentional self-exploration, skill development, and new learning about birth with storytelling, art, ritual, dialogue, and community connection.
Begin your journey with online self-paced learning, attend four full days and one half day (35 hours) of dynamic and embodied training, and conclude with continued self-paced modules.
Experience and gain new processes and frameworks that you can bring to the families you support right away.
In-person and online learning topics include a combination of foundational, professional, and practical skills, birth justice, and exclusive Birthing from Within processes and frameworks.
This training includes:
35 hour in-person workshop including our signature Crossing the Threshold retreat
Pre- and post-course online learning modules
1 year of membership (listing in our Parent Directory, monthly continuing education calls, use of the Birthing from Within name and logo, and more!)
2 hours of one-on-one mentoring sessions with a certified Birthing from Within trainer
Business Essentials for Birthworkers Workbook by Sabia Wade
Certification packet and quarterly certification support calls
What will I learn?
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-Stages of labor: physiology and support for
-Function of hormones in birth
-Fetal development
-Prenatal Nutrition
-Medical support tools & interventions
-Pain medication options
-Cesarean birth
-Physiology of postpartum
-Coping with the challenges of the postpartum period
-Infant feeding
-PMAD (Postpartum Mood & Anxiety Disorders) prevention, screening, support, & resources
-Planning prenatal and postpartum sessions
-Making medical decisions
-Informed consent
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-Collaborating with medical teams
-Best practices for trauma informed care
-Creating a resource list for clients
-Self care for birth workers
-Active listening skills
-Interviewing
-Managing commitments & contracts
-Advocacy
-Confidentiality
-Being on call & doula lifestyle
-Planning prenatal and postpartum sessions
-Getting your business up and running
-Business Essentials for Birthworkers, a workbook by Sabia Wade
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-Support for stages of labor
-Labor positions and hands-on support
-Pain Coping practices for labor and birth
-Support of cesarean birth
-Postpartum support (visits, transition plan, expectations)
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-Six dynamic pain coping practices
-Tools for embodiment & self reflection
-Birth trauma reduction tools
-Working with fear & uncertainty
-The Labyrinth of birth: using metaphor to prepare to cope with internal and external complexities of the birth experience
-Celebration and ritual for postpartum
-Ritual for birth workers
-Mentoring vs teaching: offering authentic, practical, individualized support
-Solution focused dialogue
-Using storytelling and the framework of the heroic journey as tools for preparation and healing
-Archetypes for understanding and addressing clients’ needs
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-History of birth and midwifery in US
-Anti-racism & anti-oppression concepts and frameworks
-Identity and inclusivity
-Racism and inequity in the healthcare system
-Implicit bias and privilege
-Birth and disability justice Item description
Training Led By:
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Christine D'Esposito (she/her) is a skilled mentor, full-spectrum doula, educator, facilitator, and consultant with over twenty years of experience in the field of birth work. She first discovered Birthing From Within in 2003 at a doula training. It was the concept of honoring birth as a rite of passage and a transformational experience for everyone involved that spoke to her most. This has driven her life's work to include supporting and celebrating the passages of fertility, birth, postpartum, coming of age, grief, loss, and the many thresholds in between. Christine is the Director of Programs, a co-owner and steward of Birthing from Within. She also works as a Doula consultant, helping to establish equitable community doula programs in hospital systems. She is a natural leader and innovator with a strength for navigating the unknown.
Christine has a passion for the intersection of birth and social justice work and aspires to be an agent of change in the world. In addition to her many years of experience and the technical expertise that comes with it, Christine brings to her work a sense of playfulness paired with deep life wisdom. This unique combination of traits makes her a truly effective mentor who invites all of us to keep diving into the ongoing work and play of life’s journey.
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Maeve is a Licensed Midwife, BfW Facilitator, Childbirth Educator, and Sexual Wellness Coach practicing in the SF Bay Area. She first connected with Birthing From Within in 2007 as she prepared to give birth herself. Since then she has found a home within the Birthing From Within community, philosophy and practice. Maeve loves inviting birth professionals and birthing families to listen deeply and harness their courage, wisdom, and resourceful nature, as they walk in the footsteps of beloved ancestors and forge the new paths of modern birth. Serving as a guide and ally in this process is profound, and continually takes her to places of questioning, learning, and discovery.
Maeve's areas of special interest as a Facilitator include trauma informed practice; storytelling, archetypes and symbols; somatic practice and education; and integrating BfW and midwifery. Her background prior to birth work was as a massage therapist and Cranio-Sacral therapist, bodywork teacher and Pilates teacher, all of which inform her work today.
WHY WE BECOME DOULAS
In these times, birthing people need a holistic and dynamic foundation of support as they navigate pregnancy, the wide range of birth experiences and postpartum realities. Our current healthcare system does not provide the client-centered, culturally appropriate care needed to honor and cherish the mental, emotional and physical health of our clients.
We become doulas because we see the disparities and gaps in caring for pregnant people, and understand that a thriving pregnant person needs not only medical care to keep them and baby safe, but deserves mental, emotional and physical support, and someone to acknowledge their unique and diverse experience!
Now is the time to grow strong communities and it starts with you! Our Birth Doula Training prepares you to support families across the spectrum of pregnancy, labor, the wide variety of birth outcomes, and the immediate postpartum time.
WHAT IS THE IMPACT OF DOULAS?
For clients to know they are seen as experts of their own bodies makes all the difference. And to cultivate a deep relationship with our clients ahead of time means we can support them in ways their caregivers just don’t have the capacity to. THIS is where doula support fills in the gaps.
The Evidence-Based Benefits of a Doula: (Read the full report here!)
39% decrease in the risk of Cesarean with continuous support from a doula
15% increase in the likelihood of a spontaneous vaginal birth with support from a doula
10% decrease in the use of any medications for pain relief
Shorter labors by 41 minutes on average with continuous support
38% decrease in the baby’s risk of a low five minute Apgar score
31% decrease in the risk of being dissatisfied with the birth experience
A BIRTH DOULA…
Recognizes birth as a key experience the birthing person will remember all their life.
Understands the physiology of birth and the emotional needs of a birthing person during pregnancy, birth and postpartum.
Assists the birthing family in preparing for and carrying out their plans and hopes for birth.
Stays with the person throughout the labor.
Provides emotional support, physical comfort measures, and unbiased, evidence based information so families can make informed decisions.
Facilitates communication between the laboring person, their partner and their clinical care providers.
Perceives their role as nurturing and protecting the person’s memory of the birth experience.
Allows the birthing person’s partner and/or support team to participate at their comfort level.
