Full Spectrum Doula Training

Enrollment for our Spring 2025 training is open!

Our 12-week, online Full Spectrum Doula Training provides doula education for all stages of a birthing person's life.

We also include education around topics and issues facing our communities and the birth world, such as the Black perinatal health crisis, food insecurity, and queer and trans birth and family building.

This training is available for new doulas as well as experienced doulas.

Note: While this course focuses on the U.S. context, the skills you learn will be applicable outside of the U.S. as well. We have had many students from around the world in each FSD cohort.

2025 Training Dates

We will offer our FSD Training twice in 2025, in the Spring and Fall.

Enrollment will open for each cohort in the weeks prior, and will be announced on social media and to those on our email list.

Live classes will be held on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 1pm ET. Classes are 75-120 minutes long. Attendance is NOT required. Replays are shared on the learning platform.

Thursday sessions will be divided among four live masterclasses, four co-working sessions and four Q & A's.

All live sessions will have automated captions in English. All replays of live sessions will have corrected captions.

**All prerecorded masterclasses have autogenerated captions in English, some have additional accessibility points (ASL or corrected captions). If you would like more detailed information, email us at info@birthingadvocacy.org.

"This is the most comprehensive training program I've taken as a doula to date (6+ years as a doula)…

I'm grateful for the different voices I was able to learn from, for the course creators, and for my cohort colleagues. Thank you for pouring your time and energy into me so that I can better serve my clients."

Liz Walsh

General Overview (Live)

This training includes:

  • Live classes on 12 consecutive Tuesdays at 1pm EST. There will be 12 live sessions on Thursdays at 1 pm EST, divided among four live masterclasses, four co-working sessions and four Q & A's. All live session are between 75 and 120 minutes long.

  • Attendance is NOT required. Replays are shared on the learning platform.

  • Weekly lessons, materials and assignments. 

  • Quarterly business strategy sessions (and an invitation to each of these future sessions once your training has ended for extended business support).

  • Access to our private online community.

  • One year of access to all materials and recordings (and a free, one-time, 6-month extension, if you need more time!)

  • Optional certification. Certification comes with additional requirements that vary. Our certifications are for life, you will not need to recertify. 

  • A free listing in our directory. You can make your directory listing as soon as you enroll! You do not need a completed certification to join!

  • Scholarship opportunities are available, please sign up for our newsletter and stay connected on social media for more information!

  • Please send an email to info@birthingadvocacy.org about your accessibility needs.

Certification Requirements

If you choose to pursue certification with us, you will be asked to: 

  • Complete online student modules

  • Complete reading list and book reports (books must be obtained by student, we provide PDF downloads when available, and encourage lending/borrowing). Book list:

    • Birthing Liberation, Sabia Wade (Optional Reading)

    • The Labor Progress Handbook (4th Edition), Penny Simkin

    • Killing the Black Body, Dorothy Roberts

    • Revolutionary Mothering, Alexis Pauline Gumbs

    • Empty Cradle Broken Heart, Deborah L Davis

    • Oppression and the Body, Caldwell & Leighton

    • Transformed By Birth, Britta Bushnell

    • Feed the Baby, Victoria Facelli

  • Complete an Infant/Child CPR Certification

  • Visit or tour 2 hospitals, birth centers, or clinics (2 visits total)

  • Support 3 births

  • Attend a chestfeeding/infant feeding support group or class for parents (1 class total)

  • Complete all written assignments thoughtfully

  • Final Exam (unlimited attempts, minimal difficulty)

  • Write an assessment of available local resources & gaps

  • Outline your business strategy

  • Participate in our private online community

  • Certification Valid for 3 Years (we will never charge for recertification, and we offer free continuing education opportunities each quarter that will qualify for re-certification)

We want to help you navigate the upcoming policy changes with the Doula Medicaid process.

We’ve compiled a page with more details, including the states where we’ve been approved.

Full Spectrum Doula Training Enrollment Is Now Open!

Classes begin March 4th

LIVE Full Spectrum Doula Training

$999

Bundle The Live Full Spectrum Doula Training (Spring 2025)…

+ Prerecorded Full Spectrum Lactation Educator Training

$1,500

+ Prerecorded Full Spectrum Childbirth Educator Training
(PRESALE)

$1,500

+ In-Person FSD Practicum (Atlanta, GA)

$1,350

“BADT's incredible teachers and team have broken the mold with their 12-week Full-Spectrum Doula Training…

I felt like each element was thoughtful, rich with context, knowledge, expertise, and heart, and considered thoroughly. I learned so much about great birth work, but I also learned a lot about how a great program is facilitated, took in some skillful ways to manage conflict/disagreement within a large and varied cohort, and genuinely had a great time - lots of giggles and levity along with the depth and soul."

— Delaine Tiniakos-Doran

Meet Our Teachers

Sabia is looking to their right, smiling.

Sabia Wade

Core Teacher

Sabia (she/they) - The Black Doula - is a Radical Doula, Educator, Doula Business Coach, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (in training), and Reproductive Justice Advocate. She founded Birthing Advocacy Doula Trainings in 2019 with the goal of bringing necessary education to doulas that are seeking to go beyond the traditional doula role and into advocacy work for the communities that need them.

Iya Mystique

Core Teacher

Iya Mystique (they/she) is a “unicorn”, Black queer femme, tech baddie, and full spectrum perinatal educator. With a Master of Science in Clinical Mental Health Counseling and a "retired therapist" with over 10 years of mental health and wellness experience, Iya Mystique is also a certified BADTie full-spectrum doula, lactation educator, childbirth educator, lactation specialist, perinatal-child health community worker, and a Reiki I and II practitioner, along with being a trained newborn care specialist.

As a teacher and the program manager at Birthing Advocacy Doula Trainings (BADT), Iya Mystique works with students and professionals to transform partners and accomplices in the movement to change the current birth environment locally, nationally, and globally.

In addition to work in the perinatal space, Iya Mystique is an initiated Ifa priestess (spiritual midwife) who specializes in Caribbean-Indigenous practices centered around reproductive support, full-spectrum access, advanced holistic plant medicine, "Blactation" (Black lactation), mental health wellness, and healing justice for Black LGBTQ+ communities, along with innovative web and app development as a UX/UI designer and software engineer.

Masterclass Teachers

  • Lucia Gutierrez is a Mexican indigenous engineer, born and raised in the heart of the Purépecha community in Michoacán, Mexico. Lucia’s journey into reclaiming her heritage began with the birth of her two children, whom she welcomed into this world with the guidance of midwives. This deeply transformative experience ignited a profound desire to reconnect with the ancestral knowledge passed down by her abuelas. As Lucia began to explore these traditions, she realized the importance of integrating them with the advanced scientific education she had pursued.

  • Moss Froom is a birth worker and educator living in Baltimore, MD. Moss offers trans and queer-centered support services for people at all stages of their reproductive and family-building journeys and teaches other birth workers and healthcare providers how to provide support that's affirming and celebratory of trans and queer families.

  • Teddy is a full spectrum doula who has been serving the Houston Community for 5 years. Teddy supports and provides important information to the people in his community. One thing he is passionate about and takes pride in is educating parents, especially their partners. Having that extra support goes a long way and knowing that Teddy is making a positive impact lets him me know he’s doing the right thing.

  • Erika Davis is a South Puget, sound-based birth worker, with a focus on childbirth education and postpartum. Erika has also been trained and certified as a yoga instructor. Erika is a transplant from Brooklyn, NY where she completed her training with Ancient Song Doula Services. Erika has spent the first two years of her doula business working with Black and POC families and continues to make herself an advocate for Black birthing people and continues to focus her work on the celebration and affirmation of Black and queer families and people.

  • Bernadette Pleasant is a passionate entrepreneur, somatic healer, grief educator, and End of Life doula, dedicated to guiding people toward uncovering their primal and higher self. As a motivational public speaker and storyteller, Bernadette is known for getting audiences out of their seats and into a deeply embodied experience. With vibrant energy and deep empathy, Bernadette empowers people to embrace their full emotional spectrum—from joy to grief, and everything in between. Bernadette also coaches those who want to share their stories with the world, helping them find their voice and connect with their audience in meaningful ways.

Student Feedback

  • Not only did I learn so much about aspects of birthwork that I had never even thought of, I learned so much about life in general and I'm so grateful for that. I'm also grateful for the community we built. By starting each class with a grounding, check in and encouraging us to build relationships with each other in a bunch of ways has been so rich and meaningful. I looked forward to every week because it felt like a chance to see my friends.

    Christine Gibson (@queensdoula)

  • I signed up for two courses before coming across BADT and kept feeling like maybe I had chosen wrong, maybe all the times I thought this was a field I was interested in I was sorely mistaken. BADT made me feel like I was exactly where I was supposed to be, it showed me that like-minded folx were out there and that there could be a place in the doula world for me. I'm missing my Tuesday afternoons and feeling pretty darn grateful for the magic that was shared in that space for those 12 weeks.

    Jillian Desirée (@breathinspiredmovement)

Additional questions?