An advanced online workshop with Adriana Lozada
DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR?
- You've spent hours working with your clients, diving deep into their birth wishes and figuring out ways that you all can best support those wishes… then labor starts, and at the first fork in the road (or a coercive "You wouldn't want to hurt your baby, would you?"), all those carefully considered plans go out the window.
OR
- Your client is starting to sound like they're moving into the pushing stage. They're checked to be "nine and a lip" and then that lip is manually "moved out of the way" with the next contraction.
They start pushing while on their back, with nurses and caregivers telling them how to do it (a.k.a. "directed pushing"), even though their wishes were to push in a position of their choosing and let their body guide the process. This goes on for hours, with them feeling like they are doing it wrong and getting more and more discouraged.
By the time they meet their baby, they are utterly exhausted. Their pelvic tissues have been battered. Their baby's head and neck have suffered unnecessary forces that can have a negative impact on lactation and their nervous system.
OR
- Your client is approaching 39 weeks, and you are bracing yourself for the seemingly inevitable "induction talk" which will bring all kinds of unnecessary stress, confusion, and fear as they try to understand if this suggestion to get them on the induction schedule, "just in case," makes any sense. Wondering if their choices will cause their baby harm or if they (and their baby) will be harmed by the over-medicalized system.
IT ALL MAKES ME WANT TO SCREAM!
AND YET...
I know that all is not lost and that people can have fabulously flowing births in a medicalized setting because I have seen it.
- I have seen clients (who after being made–and coached–to push "unsuccessfully" for an hour while lying down because of concerning decels) ask for 20 minutes to push however they want, stand up by the side of the bed, go with their sensations to move (and breathe) as they please, and get their babies from +1 to crowning in those 20 minutes.
- I have seen clients determined not to tear (because they tore the last time and hated the recovery) give birth standing up without barely bending their knees while their baby oozed out onto a hospital provider's patient hands. They did not tear, even though the baby had a nuchal hand.
- I have seen clients who, not wanting to "feel drugged" when they needed therapeutic rest, chose to get an epidural. When later it was established that their labor had stopped, instead of going the induction route, they advocated for letting the epidural wear off and then went home. (Labor started again that night, and they had a non-epidural vaginal birth the next day).
- I have even seen clients have fear-free unassisted water births at the hospital. Dad happily caught the baby while their care provider was getting the ultrasound machine to verify that the baby was head down.
Yet they easily let go of the culturally-learned, medical-based beliefs that perpetuate birth as a scary thing out of their control, that needs to be guarded and managed by medical providers.
During our prenatal meetings, they learned how to dismantle this learned compliance and how to support their birth physiology in order to take ownership of their process from a place of self-efficacy. In short, they believed they could do it, so they did. They also knew they could have their providers step in if they needed true medical assistance.
Let's go beyond comfort measures.
Beyond having to rely on others to tell your client where they are in a process happening in their bodies.
Beyond your clients having to ask for or receive permission as to when to push.
Let's spend the day talking about how to dismantle this learned compliance and replace it with evidence-based physiological tools that will allow your clients to take the driver's seat and connect with what's unfolding inside them.
So they can truly take ownership of their process, and you can all enjoy more flowing (and shorter!) births, with fewer unnecessary interventions.
Since 2007, I’ve helped birth doula clients take the reins of their process and own their births to have more satisfying birth experiences. These experiences have run the gamut from unmedicated home births to planned cesarean births, and everything in between.
The preparation we do during our prenatal meetings is so impactful, that there have even been times where birth has switched gears and flowed too quickly for me to make it to the hospital in time. These clients still tell me they “couldn’t have done it without me,” meaning, they couldn’t have done it without all this simple yet powerful preparation.
I use the term “simple” because we don’t spend months getting ready. In fact, I only met twice with my doula clients, for a total of 3 hours.
This Dismantling Learned Compliance workshop outlines the physiology-based method I developed through supporting hundreds of births AND having hundreds of conversations with perinatal professionals on the Birthful podcast.
GOLD Perinatal online conference
keynote speaker
Evidence Based Birth conference keynote speaker
DONA International Summit speaker
Give the birthing power back to your clients!
This means that as a birth professional, you'll also have a better experience!
What past participants are saying:
Inspiring, energizing, well-paced
The workshop was inspiring and energizing. The teaching was energetic and well-paced. The activities were well-distributed. Thank you!
This class was amazing!
I could've stayed and kept listening and learning for many more hours! This course will allow me to support birthing people better both in my role as a doula and as a childbirth educator.
The time flew
The time flew, I was fully engaged (pun intended) the whole time. Would never have guessed it was your first online version.
Non-antagonistic
This approach gives me language and very practical skills to support clients in increasing their self-efficacy and involvement in their own births, without being antagonistic to care providers and/or involvement with medical systems.
Perspective changing!
(Adriana is a) perspective-changing powerhouse, shifting the views of physiology and birth ownership!
This was one of the best, most impactful workshops I've taken in my professional career
I spent today re-structuring my initial and subsequent prenatal visits to include more teaching and home care, and re-writing my pregnancy resources that I give to patients.
OBJECTIVES
- Describe the four entwined aspects of physiological birth presented within this model.
- Describe ways in which clients can begin to support these four aspects during pregnancy, to later improve labor flow.
- Describe ways in which clients can support these four aspects during labor, and your role as facilitator.
- Reconsider the need for demarcation of a separate pushing state, learn how to convey evidence and physiology to help clients internalize this new concept, and discuss how this can be put into practice within the common hospital approach towards the pushing stage (whether it be directed or not).
- Explore birth scenarios where interventions may be suggested or required (prodromal, PROM, inductions, epidurals, GBS+), focusing on how to best support physiology, within the boundaries imposed by the interventions.
- Discuss ways in which this new birth model promotes birth ownership, and increases birthing confidence.
SCHEDULE
Times listed in Eastern Time. Convert to your time zone here.
- 10:00 am – 10:20 am Introductions
- 10:20 am – 1:00 pm Workshop (with 10 min break)
- 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm Lunch/long break (on your own)
- 3:00 pm – 6:10 pm Workshop (continued - with 10 min break)
- 6:10 pm – 6:30 pm Wrap-up, Evaluations, and Certificates
Join me!
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Frequently Asked Questions
Have a different question? Email us at info@birthfulcourses.com.
What is the class size?
This class is very interactive, so we limit group size to between 15 to 20 people per session. If you are interested in a particular date, don't wait to sign up!
I belong to a doula group, and we'd like to take this workshop together. What should we do?
Do you provide scholarships or have a payment sliding scale?
Yes! We reserve two spots each workshop session for underrepresented populations* experiencing financial need. Contact us at classes@birthful.com to learn more.
*This includes people of color, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, those with disabilities and more.
What if I register, and then can't make it because I'm at a birth?
We get it! That is par for the course in the life of a doula. If you can’t make it, you can contact us to transfer your registration to another doula. If that isn’t an option, send us an email to info@birthfulcourses.com, to transfer your payment to a spot in a future workshop.
What's the cancellation policy?
If you need to cancel your registration, you can do so up to 5 days before the start of the workshop for a refund minus a $25 processing fee (plus any payment processing fees we may have incurred). Just email us to iron out the details.
No refunds will be given for notifications received less than 5 days before the workshop date, however, if you can’t make it, you can contact us to transfer your registration to another doula. If that isn’t an option, send us an email to info@birthfulcourses.com, to transfer your payment to a spot in a future workshop.
In the instance of circumstances beyond our control, we reserve the right to reschedule or cancel this event.