Full Spectrum Doula Training

Enrollment for our Fall 2024 training has closed.

Please sign up for our waitlist if you’re interested in future cohorts!

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.

2024 Training Dates

We will offer our FSD Training twice in 2024, 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.

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)

  • Assist with a birth, abortion or 12 hours of postpartum care 

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

  • Complete all written assignments thoughtfully

  • Write an assessment of available local resources & gaps

  • Outline your business strategy

  • Participate in our private online community

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 Closed!

LIVE Full Spectrum Doula Training

$999

Bundle: LIVE Full Spectrum Doula Training + Prerecorded Full Spectrum Lactation Educator Training

$1,500

Bundle: LIVE Full Spectrum Doula Training + In-Person FSD Practicum (Atlanta, GA)

$1,350

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”, Blactinx queer femme, and certified radical birth worker currently pursing their path in traditional community birth work, lactation, research, and education, along with being a Pathway 3 Mentee to become a future IBCLC. With a Master of Science in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, Iya Mystique is a trained newborn care specialist and advanced holistic plant medicine practitioner. Iya Mystique specializes in Caribbean-Indigenous practices in their role as an initiated Ifa priestess in perinatal health, reproductive health and justice, “Blactation” (Black lactation), and healing justice for Black LGBTQ+ communities. Iya Mystique's vision is to infuse their love for birth, postpartum, healing, education, and lactation into their future full spectrum practice.

Masterclass Teachers

  • Keisha Reaves: @pushthrumom, Topic: Black Perinatal Mental Health

  • Kaytee Crawford: @doulakaytee, Topic: Queer & Trans Lactation

  • Hand Waves Birth Services: @handwavesbirth, Topic: Disability Birth Support

  • Jessica Young Chang: @jessyoungchang, Topic: Pregnancy Loss regarding spiritual care, needs, and emotions of the birthing person

  • Renee Bracey Sherman: @reneebraceysherman, Topic: Liberating Abortion

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?