At the end of this program, your view of birth, women, birth practices, and where the power resides will be transformed! You will be ready to attend births.

A birth doula provides physical, emotional and informational support to the mother and partner during pregnancy, birth and early post-partum.

Begin or expand your birth business with this Birth Ways International Birth Doula Training. 

Current hospital policies will be discussed, along with the ways doulas can be effective in any setting, either in-person or from a distance.

This program is a combination of self-paced learning modules and an interactive weekend workshop. It prepares you to become a birth doula and help birthing women & people through labour, whether you want to support a friend or make a career choice. You’ll leave with educational resources and instructions for hands-on practice.

You will learn:

• Practicing with integrity
• Role and responsibilities of a doula, scope of practice
• Key doula standards and professional ethics
• Working effectively with medical care providers and others that attend the birth
• Labour support tools, practical skills, comfort measures / coping methods
• Common interventions and informed decision-making
• Caesarean births and VBAC (vaginal birth after caesarean)
• Alternative / complimentary support methods
• Self-awareness, including your motivation for doula work, your ideal client, your boundaries
• Basic anatomy and physiology specific to labour and birth
• Prenatal and postpartum client visits
• Working with diverse clients/families/populations
• Sensitivity and tools for working with client diversity
• Coping & support of unexpected events
• Basic breastfeeding initiation
• Effective communication – listening skills, impact of language
• Honouring individual birth process - memory of birth, narrative
• Start-up and sustaining your practise (birth work business)

Our workshops include people from all walks of life. Some participants have been to births before but most haven’t.  Some are parents and others are not.  We train young folks, wise elders, and everything in between – it’s never too early or too late to embark upon this path. Rural and urban people attend.  Some participants have no background knowledge or experience while others are healthcare professionals.

The live-streamed workshop component is a required part of the program.  You chose the dates that work for you!

Next Birth Doula Live-Streamed Workshop Dates:

Mondays, 7-9pm, Sep 18 - Oct 30; no class on Thanksgiving Day (Oct 09). All sessions are recorded in case someone has to miss any.  

We may have a spring 2024 group class but more likely, future classes will be more of an "evergreen model". There will still be monthly group meetings but all instruction will be pre-recorded. In the meantime, the self-paced modules can be done at any time. The monthly Learning Circles are available for live (online) connection with instructors and other doulas, no matter where you're at in your training process. We have people who are totally new to the program and 10 year alumni in those sessions.  

If you wish to deepen your knowledge and pursue birth doula certification through Birth Ways International, this course is the first step.  Certification is not a requirement to practise as a doula but is a valuable process.

* There are no hidden fees such as membership, mandatory conferences, admin fees, redoing of classes etc.  You can start taking clients as soon as you've completed this birth doula training program (the self-directed portion and the live-streamed workshop).  

Fees for the Birth Doula Training Program with live-streamed group workshop: $495.

Click the PayPal button to pay with your credit card or a PayPal account.  (You don't need a PayPal account if you pay by credit card.) You will gain immediate access to the course.