Tell me, have you had this thought: “I would really like to become a childbirth educator but…”? Now fill in the blank… “I need to learn to teach childbirth classes, I don’t know which “method” to teach, how to prepare a curriculum, I can’t…I don’t… there isn’t… they won’t…”. Time to start believing some impossible things!
When I started offering classes to expectant parents it never occurred to me to teach a particular “method” or “technique” or that I should even “learn to teach”. By attending births as a doula, and watching women and their partners in labor, I felt I had something to offer that might meet a need in a different way. I simply brought to the table what I knew personally: what I witnessed as a doula, together with what I knew about movement exploration and thought it might help couples connect to each other for their births. That was in 1998 and since then, I have spent well over 3000 hours facilitating a “class” that started out looking like one thing, morphed into something completely different and is dynamically changing with each new session and group of women and their partners who show up to explore with me.
Likewise, I never sought out to create a “curriculum” for other instructors to use. I tried to create a fun series that couples would enjoy participating in (and that I would enjoy facilitating) that would give expectant parents truly practical tools for their birth journey and maybe bring them closer together in the process. Then, the real learning (most especially by me) began. What happened since is that I have been approached repeatedly by others who want to offer a unique learning experience to expectant parents. After many years of looking at the pros and cons (not just to myself but to those who are interested in licensing this model and most especially to the couples who would be joining them to explore normal birth in this format) I decided it was time to respond to this need.
So, if you are a doula who is thinking about teaching childbirth or becoming a childbirth educator, or you are a childbirth educator who is looking for something different, you might want to consider this model and see if it is a good fit for you.