About the course

Beyond Birth is where your doula training expands into ethics, cultural humility, trauma-informed care, and justice-centered practice. Rooted in a social work perspective, this course asks you to examine how systems, colonization, and inherited structures continue to influence birth experiences today. You will explore consent, boundaries, power, privilege, and accountability while learning how to offer care that is adaptive rather than prescriptive. This course moves beyond surface-level inclusion and into the work of unlearning, listening, and practicing humility in real time. This course is about reclaiming birthwork as relational, ethical, and rooted in collective care.

Curriculum

6 Chapters · 42 Lessons

  1. 1

    THE DOULA AS THE BRIDGE

    1. (Included in full purchase)

      Intention, Orientation, and Learning Goals

    2. (Included in full purchase)

      VIDEO: Time to Join the Revolution

    3. (Included in full purchase)

      Welcome Back: Beyond Birth

    4. (Included in full purchase)

      Presence, Power, and Responsibility

    5. (Included in full purchase)

      Reflection: Where Are You Already Standing?

    6. (Included in full purchase)

      Story as Medicine: Clara Arenas Marr

    7. (Included in full purchase)

      Beyond Birth Glossary

  2. 2

    BIRTHWORK AS GLOBAL SOCIAL JUSTICE WORK

    1. (Included in full purchase)

      Birth as a Social Justice Issue - An Overview

    2. (Included in full purchase)

      Understanding Systems of Care

    3. (Included in full purchase)

      VIDEO: Birthwork as Social Justice

    4. (Included in full purchase)

      Understanding Global Maternal Health Disparities

    5. (Included in full purchase)

      Timeline of Women's Rights in the United States

    6. (Included in full purchase)

      Power, Policy, and Access

    7. (Included in full purchase)

      Reproductive Justice: A Global Lens for Birthworkers

    8. (Included in full purchase)

      Micro, Mezzo, Macro as a Tool for Change

    9. (Included in full purchase)

      Climate, Crisis, and Care

  3. 3

    DECOLONIZING BIRTHWORK

    1. (Included in full purchase)

      Decolonizing Birthwork: Returning to Relationship

    2. (Included in full purchase)

      White Women as Allies and Accomplices in Reproductive Justice

    3. (Included in full purchase)

      The Role of Birthworkers in Social Justice

    4. (Included in full purchase)

      Decolonizing Birth: From Policy to Postpartum with Clara Arenas

  4. 4

    CULTURAL HUMILITY & TRAUMA INFORMED CARE

    1. (Included in full purchase)

      Cultural Humility & Competence

    2. (Included in full purchase)

      Trauma-Informed Care

    3. (Included in full purchase)

      VIDEO: Past Trauma Future Self

    4. (Included in full purchase)

      ACEs

    5. (Included in full purchase)

      Vicarious Trauma, Moral Distress, and Moral Injury

    6. (Included in full purchase)

      Consent & Respectful Care

    7. (Included in full purchase)

      Ethics, Boundaries & Professionalism

  5. 5

    INTERSECTIONAL CARE

    1. (Included in full purchase)

      Story as Medicine: Kate Rubens

    2. (Included in full purchase)

      Working with Diverse Populations: A Global Lens

    3. (Included in full purchase)

      Supporting Queer and Gender-Expansive Families

    4. (Included in full purchase)

      Supporting Teen Parents

    5. (Included in full purchase)

      Story as Medicine: Aziza Knight

    6. (Included in full purchase)

      Supporting Black and Brown Families

    7. (Included in full purchase)

      Supporting Non-Traditional Family Structures

    8. (Included in full purchase)

      Supporting Clients Living Outside the System

    9. (Included in full purchase)

      Spirituality and Birthwork

    10. (Included in full purchase)

      Adapting Support Across Cultural and Economic Contexts

    11. (Included in full purchase)

      Avoiding Saviorism in Cross-Cultural Birthwork

  6. 6

    STORYTELLING AND ACTIVISM

    1. (Included in full purchase)

      Starting a Postpartum Support Group

    2. (Included in full purchase)

      Storytelling as a Tool for Change

    3. (Included in full purchase)

      Advocacy, Activism, and Integration

    4. (Included in full purchase)

      Course 4 Completion: Beyond Birth

A note from me, Charlotte Brielle

This course is deeply personal to me. It has been shaped by my undergraduate studies in anthropology and sociology, my master’s degree in maternal social work, and nearly a decade of working as a birthworker across cultures and systems. It has also been profoundly informed by everything Wombs of the World has taught me through years of global maternal health work, listening, unlearning, and relationship-building. Beyond Birth brings together these threads. Academic frameworks. Lived experience. Professional ethics. And the deep, relational skills that allow us to show up without centering ourselves. This is the work that has lived loudest in my heart, and the work I feel most called to teach.

Deepen your awareness. Strengthen your integrity. Expand your capacity to serve.

Enroll in Beyond Birth and step into birthwork as a practice of justice and humility.

Please contact us for access. (opens email in new window)