Why certify with Big Belly Services?

If you are considering certification, consider this:

The Big Belly Services birth doula certification program provides rigorous requirements to ensure doulas are able to safely and appropriately serve childbearing families and make an impact in the world. The Big Belly Services birth doula certification program provides rigorous requirements to ensure doulas are able to safely and appropriately serve childbearing families and make an impact in the world.

What distinguishes Big Belly Services’ certification from other certification programs is the focus on:

- racial and social justice awareness,
- human and women’s rights,
- empowerment of birthing people,
- and an understanding of the politics of birth.

Certification Requirements

1. Complete a birth doula training offered by Big Belly Services (this may include an enCircle Birth Doula Training, an Intensive Doula Training, or a Doula Schoola Online Doula Training); other trainings will be considered on a case-by-case basis
2. Purchase a Certification Packet 3. Complete the required reading, and complete and sign the Required Reading List Form
4. Sign the Standards of Practice and Code of Ethics
5. Attend a minimum of three births (see packet for criteria), and document your experiences
6. Provide evaluations from three clients and three care providers from the births you attended
7. Complete the Personal Reflections journal
8. Complete an additional course in Breast/Chestfeeding (see packet for criteria)
9. Complete an additional course in Business Practices (see packet for criteria)
10. Create an essay on the doula’s role in addressing birth justice, and how you as a doula will make an impact (see packet for criteria)
11. Create a resource list of community resources for clients (see packet for criteria)
12. Complete the Labor and Birth Overview assessment
13. Provide a sample of one of your marketing materials that shows how you describe your services (brochure, website, facebook business page, flyer, etc)
14. Provide two recommendation forms from references who can attest to your character, gifts, and who you are as a person (they do not have to have familiarity of birth)

Want more information?

  • Big Belly Services’ certified doulas will have achieved not only competence in basic birth doula skills and birth support, they will also demonstrate:

    - an understanding of the physiology of birth;
    the impact of pregnancy, labor and birth on an individual’s emotional, psychological and physical state;
    - the identity transformations that occur for all members of a family when bringing a new member into the family;
    - the intersections of ethnicity, race, cultural background, privilege, religion, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, language, education, poverty, ability, age, size, and health;
    - the ability to identify and recognize systems of oppressions.

  • The fee to receive your certification packet is $25. You have two years to complete your packet. The fee to review your packet is $100.

  • When you certify with Big Belly Services, you are certified for life. I assume that as a professional, you will pursue continuing education, maintain professional relationships, and work to dismantle the systems of oppression that marginalize people.