My Training & Experience

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1996 CEDEN, Education for the pregnant teen training

I provided childbirth education and parenting skills to pregnant teenagers in their homes and attended their births as a support person.

1997 Volunteer Mentor, El Buen Samaritano Austin TX

I mentored and educated people experiencing crisis during pregnancy, focusing on prenatal education, birth support, and parenting skills.

1997 Round Rock School District, Pregnant Teen Education Program

I provided childbirth education and parenting skills instruction to pregnant teenagers in their homes.

1997 Started Private Practice as a birth doula

04/2001 Completed a DONA approved doula training with Penny Simkin

06/2001 Hypnobirthing childbirth classes

08/2001 DONA 2001 International Conference Milwaukee WI

Sessions included:

• Nurturing women: Integrating water into maternity care with Barbara Harper
• From cloth burgers to lunch boxes: new ways to learn about breastfeeding
• “Post term” pregnancy: What does evidence tell us?
• The myth of homebirth in the hospital

09/2001 Bradley Method Childbirth Classes

09/2001 Adult, Infant and Child CPR

09/2001 First Aid Basics

11/2001 Completed a DONA approved advanced doula training.

Sessions included:

• Hi Tech birth and the doula’s role
• Staying positive and nurturing in difficult situations
• Building a nurturing doula community
• Advanced comfort measure techniques
• Childhood abuse and the childbearing woman

2002-2004 Childbirth Educator, The Up Connection

I provided childbirth education to teenagers, both in classroom settings and through individual sessions. 

2003-2006 Staff Doula, The Birth Place at Columbia Hospital WI

I served as an on-call doula for Wisconsin’s inaugural hospital-based doula program.

07/2003 DONA International Conference San Francisco

Sessions included:

• Listening to mothers The First National US Survey of Women’s Childbearing Experience with Debra Pascali-Bonaro, BEd, CD(DONA) and Carol Sakala, PhD
• Safe and Effective Maternity Care
• Colic, the fourth trimester and the calming reflex with Harvey Karp, MD
• Marketing your doula practice
• How to maintain high quality maternity care
• They said it couldn’t be done… The UCSD heart and hands volunteer doula program
• The selling of the cesarean section Madison Avenue Comes to Medicine with Mayri Sagady, CNM, MSN
• Positioning to relieve pain and enhance labor progress
• Helping parents following the death of a stillborn, premature infant or newborn baby with Marshall Klaus, MD
• The Irreducible Needs of the Baby with John Kennell, MD

7/2004 DONA International Conference New Orleans

Sessions included:

• Doulas- A bridge over troubled waters; Protecting the mother and baby continuum
• Pelvic Power
• The impact of early trauma on the childbearing woman
• Establishing a Community based Volunteer doula program
• Postpartum Culture: The loss of lying-in time
• There’s more in 2004: Articles that impact doula practice
• I’m listening: Responding to the emotional needs of pregnant and postpartum women and their families
  Jazzing up your teaching
• Helping parents understand their newborn: The clinical neonatal behavioral assessment scale for birth and postpartum doulas
• Boundaries, Personal safety and self-defense of the doula
• The effects of a birth doula- seven weeks postpartum

2002-06 Executive Director, The Doula Connection

I founded this 501C3 program to benefit at risk women and teens in need of doula services.

2003 Ina May Gaskin presentation on Maternal Mortality

2003-06 Midwifery Study group in Prep for NARM

12/2003 Neonatal Resuscitation Certification with Karen Strange

02/2004 ALACE Labor assistant training

2004-06 Homebirth Midwife Apprenticeship

01/2014 DONA Postpartum Doula training

2014 Adult and Infant CPR/First Aid Certification

06/2014 Hypnobirthing Class Series the BEC

07/2014 DONA Birth Doula and Breastfeeding Training

12/2014 Evidence Based Birth course titled: Evidence-Based Care for Suspected Big Babies

02/2015 Spinning Babies Workshop

04/2015 Completed HUG your Baby “Helping parents understand the language of their newborn” workshop.

08-2015 Evidence-Based Birth Instructor training

03/2016 Flock Yeah Advanced Doula Training

04/2016 CAPPA Certified Birth and Postpartum Doula

01/2023 CPR Adult/Child/Infant and AED training

09/2023 CAPPA Certified Postpartum Doula Training with Darla Burns