My training and Experience

I was trained and certified with the American Academy of Husband Coached Childbirth in 1996, after the birth of my first child. My husband and I took Bradley classes during my pregnancy. I read many books about Childbirth and noticed that the more I learned, the more empowered I felt. A clearer vision of the kind of birth that I wanted emerged.

The Bradley Method® teaches that natural relaxed breathing will lead to relaxation in childbirth as opposed to Lamaze patterned breathing techniques. This seemed so obvious and natural to me. The Bradley MethodR also endorses a diet high in protein and balanced with all nutrients during pregnancy to promote health and well being for your baby and yourself. They endorse Dr. Tom Brewer’s pregnancy diet and the childbirth instructors assist their students to make sure they are getting optimal nutrition for the healthiest baby possible, including going over breastfeeding information extensively. I was drawn to the basic philosophy of knowledge of interventions and their side effects. I attended the American Academy of Husband Coached Childbirth’s Births 10 Conference and training in1997. There I met many wonderful professionals involved with childbirth including Dr. Robert Bradley himself, Susan McCutcheon (author of Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way), Rhondda Hartman R.N. (author of Exercises for True Natural Childbirth) and my personal hero Dr. Tom Brewer (author of Metabolic Toxemia of Late Pregnancy: A Disease of Malnutrition).

I have attended many of my students’ births as a labor assistant and have photographed many babies’ first baths and precious first moments filled with joyful tears. I have been featured in Midwifery Today (as a very naked birthing woman!) and on the Learning Channel’s television series A Baby Story as the labor assistant and daddy cam handler for the birth of baby Roy.

His mother and father came to my childbirth classes and asked me to attend their birth as a Doula (a Greek word meaning mothering the mother that is used for Labor Assistants)

In the summer of 2001 I went through Whole Birth Yoga, Level 1 training with Robin Sale CHT, CMT, Whole Birth Resources Yoga Training Instructor, and received my Whole Birth YogaTM Instructor Certification.

I decided in 2001 not to renew my affiliation with the A.A.H.C.C. over some differing philosophies. I now teach the principals of childbirth that Dr. Bradley endorsed, and the principals of the Brewer diet along with some more progressive philosophies covered in my studies in Robin Sale’s Whole Birth Yoga training, and Pam England’s book Birthing from Within.

I am currently certified as a Doula with ALACE (Association for Labor Assistants and Childbirth Educators) and work as a Doula and Childbirth Educator in the Ventura area.