Labour Support Skills Lecture Pack

Cheri Grant RN, ICCE, CLC, ICD, CLD, CD BDT(DONA). Is the Coordinator of LifeStart Program at St John Owasso Hospital. Childbirth Graphics named her “The Peanut Ball Lady” She is the founder and consultant for Premier Birth Tools a website that has resources for peanut balls and its mission is to get peanut balls in every hospital in the United States with resources for everyone in the world, and to teach how to use it correctly. She continues to guest lecture to OU, OSU residents and nurses on maternal and child health topics such as the "Secrets of Labor Support." She spoke on the peanut ball at the National LAMAZE convention “The Peanut Ball- New Tool for Your Doula Bag and Its Effect on Laboring Women “She has also published several an articles on the peanut ball including " The Peanut Ball: A Remarkable Labor Support Tool " in the DONA international magazine and the "Peanut Ball, Improving Options for Women Laboring with an Epidural" in Australian Midwifery News. She has recently been featured on the Podcast “How do Peanut Balls Support Labor? “ for Evidence Based Birth. She is an Authorized Peanut Ball Trainer and has developed many educational tools for the peanut ball. She also has given over 100 in-services on the peanut ball. She is the Founder of Tulsa Doulas Inc. Doulas of Northeastern Oklahoma which she started 25 years ago. She is a Birth DONA Doula Trainer her certificate number is #2 as a trainer for DONA. She is certified as a Doula through DONA, ICEA and CAPPA. She is an internationally certified childbirth educator through ICEA for over 30 years. Cheri is an author of “Labor Support Forms – A Guide to Doula Charting” which is in its Third edition and on the app Mobile Doula . Several of her articles have been published in ICEA and DONA Journals. She has lectured at DONA international conventions and AWHONN State conventions “. The Peanut Ball" and Implications for Women Health”. She also produced and directed a Video on “Comfort Measures for Labor.” She teaches and coordinates training workshops for Birth Doulas and nurses talking about the profession of doulas around the country. She previously was a lactation consultant IBCLC for over 10 years. She also maintains her lactation educator. Previously she was also AWHONN certified in-patient obstetrical nurse for many years. She was also featured on the front page of the Tulsa World for her 42 years of work with pregnant and laboring women. Teaching and speaking about how to correctly use the peanut ball is her passion.

Stephanie Larson is the visionary creator and founder of Dancing For Birth™―the powerful class which combines prenatal/postnatal fitness, childbirth education, and sacred celebration and has become a global sensation as the ‘trifecta’ of birth preparation. Over 20 years ago Stephanie instinctively ‘danced-out’ her first child in an empowering and euphoric four-hour birth. Upon hearing her peers’ stories of their traumatic births, she felt called to change the status-quo and bring a radically different birth method to parents and the professionals that serve them. Now, Certified Dancing For Birth™ Instructors on four continents educate and mentor parents on an ongoing weekly basis from pre-conception through postpartum (including baby). With each dancing labor, and the resulting connection to body, baby and bliss, birth is being transformed from fear, pain and trauma to power and pleasure.

A world-renowned expert on utilizing movement, instinct and gravity to support easier birth, Stephanie’s appearances include LAMAZE, ICAN, DONA, CAPPA, CIMS, ICEA, AWHONN, CBS, NBC, Fox and ABC. She was voted USA’s National Birth Hero by the birth community (One World Birth Award). Stephanie is the executive producer of the DVD “Prenatal Dance and Birth Wisdom.” She’s a mom of four who calls for an end to forced lithotomy position and a global shift to primal, powerful, euphoric birth and conscious parenting. Reach Stephanie at [email protected]

Denise Love is a dynamic international speaker and educator. She is passionate about life and compelled to support women through their many transitions in life. With an ever developing interest in life and death, she walks the path with many around death, particularly women whose babies die, either in utero, at birth, or soon thereafter. With a Masters degree in nursing, living and working in remote villages in Asian countries as well as Australia, she is determined that women and babies be treated respectfully within their cultural expectations.

As a childbirth educator and an instigator of the introduction and training of doulas in Australia 20 years ago, Denise identified the vital need for birthing women to ""find their voice"" and trust their ancient internal ability to birth their babies. This recognition was stimulated by the developed world's highly structured interventionist and medicalised birthing paradigms and seemingly inflexible protocols and practices. Birth matters and so does the way we all die. Combining direct language, ritual and acknowledgement of grief when a baby dies, Denise brings a refreshing attitude and approach. In her early years, practising as a Registered Nurse in remote indigenous communities, Denise gained valuable insight into how to trust our innate ability to birth, live fully and die. Denise's view has since been further reinforced through her work with vulnerable marginalised villagers in developing countries, where death is accepted as just a normal part of living.

Award winning doula and birth activist Mars Lord has been a birth keeper for well over a decade. After attending the Paramana Doula course with Michel Odent and Lilliana Lammers, a spark was lit within her and the passion that she discovered for birth and supporting parents has fired her soul ever since. She has had the privilege of working with hundreds of families. A birth activist, with a desire to see the ‘colouring in of the landscape of birth’ and finding out the reasons for the maternal and neonatal morbidity rates amongst the BAME community, Mars created Abuela Doulas a doula preparation course primarily, but not exclusively, for women of colour. Her desire for reproductive justice led to the creation of the ‘Reproductive Justice Retreat’. Mars was recently recognised in the Mayor of London's Hidden Credits campaign and continues to speak out for cultural safety and reproductive justice.

Tammy Ryan has been attending births since 2002. She is a birth doula trainer for DONA International, childbirth educator, midwifery assistant and one of six trainers world wide for Spinning Babies. Tammy has sat on the DONA International board of directors plus several other boards. She started working Internationally in 2008 when she went to DR Congo to train life saving skills in childbirth according to the World Health Organization. She has served in Haiti, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Kenya, Korea, Japan, India, Israel & Brazil. Tammy has presented childbirth information on several venues including international conferences, TV, radio, universities and to the Ministry of Health. She has been published in the quarterly International Doula and on several blogs. Tammy teaches When Survivors Give Birth as a way to help survivors and birth workers. Tammy has experienced first hand the barriers women face worldwide in getting adequate care in childbirth and postpartum.