Speakers and Sessions

• 7:00 - 8:00 pm EST | Kelsey Marr: "Your Doula Toolkit: Finding and Understanding Evidence-Based Research" 
• 8:00 - 9:00 pm EST | Vic Ozadovsky: "Embracing Size Inclusivity in the Perinatal Field: Challenging Biases and Improving Care"
• 9:00 - 10:00 pm EST | Jennifer Homer: "Autism and Childbirth: Reflections from an Autistic Doula" 

DONA Leadership invites DONA members to our annual membership meeting!

Each year the DONA International Board of Directors holds a membership meeting during the meeting you’ll hear from leadership with a report from the prior year as well as what’s coming in the future! Join us for this fun and informative meeting and get to know your leadership and DONA happenings even better.

Attendees will receive 1 DONA Contact hour for attendance at the membership meeting.

Things to expect:

• State of DONA International
• Reports from all areas (Membership, Education, Certification, and Financial, DEI, Advocacy etc.)
• Highlights from the past year
• Highlights of current and upcoming projects
• Ways to get involved and help your voice be heard
• 2025 In-Person Conference Announcement

Join us for this annual meeting and learn about what's happening from you DONA leadership! 

This session is sponsored by:

Join DONA Advocacy Committee member, Dusti Murray with a how-to tutorial on how to complete a CMS 1500/Superbill form. This form is useful for Medicaid reimbursement, but it can also be used as a super bill to give families or submit to other agencies, such as TriCare.

This short tutorial is free for DONA members and does not earn continuing education hours. 

DONA International as a membership organization seeks to partner with organizations, associations, and businesses that benefit our mission, vision, and DONA Doulas world-wide.  We are excited to partner with DoulaDo which offers a client management software system for doulas. To learn more about Doulado and the DONA/DoulaDo partnership, please enjoy this town hall and visit the website link at: https://www.doulado.co/dona

This DONA Town Hall is for informational purposes and DOES NOT constitute approved continuing education for certification. The town hall will not have a certificate of completion.  

Successful and impactful birth/pregnancy practitioners need knowledge and skills to engage in equitable practices with populations that experience poverty, immigrant populations, and people of color.  There are avoidable and unjust inequities in access to healthcare, quality of care, childbirth, and birth outcomes based on social identities such as race, immigration status, and class.  According to the CDC, black mothers in the U.S. die at three to four times the rate of white mothers, one of the widest of all racial disparities in women’s health. A black woman is 22 percent more likely to die from heart disease than a white woman, 71 percent more likely to perish from cervical cancer, but 243 percent more likely to die from pregnancy- or childbirth-related causes. In a national study of five medical complications that are common causes of maternal death and injury, black women were two to three times more likely to die than white women who had the same condition. About one in five black and Hispanic women report poor treatment from hospital staff due to race, ethnicity, cultural background, or language. Compared with 8% of white mothers, 21% of black mothers and 19% of Hispanic mothers report experiencing poor treatment while hospitalized to give birth. These data reflect social, economic, institutional, and systemic inequities that require immediate action on the part of birth/pregnancy practitioners. That action starts with education about and a commitment to health equity.

On-Demand Registration is Now Open

DONA International values presenting quality and impactful continuing education to birth and postpartum professionals from around the world.  With that in mind, DONA Leadership plans virtual and in-person events.  The annual conference for 2024 was held live, online on October 28-29th, 2024.  While the live event offered an opportunity for interaction of participants, speakers, and leaders, the on-demand viewing of all sessions is available to those already registered and those who would like to register during the on-demand portion of the conference. 

The conference offers keynote speakers, concurrent speakers, a member meeting, and a virtual exhibit hall.

We invite DONA members and doulas from all backgrounds to join us as we connect in a way that helps make this work sustainable, through education and meaningful relationships!

Learning and Continuing Education Credits

The DONA International Summit is one way we continue to provide our members with the highest standard of evidence-based training and education. The core conference qualifies as formal continuing education for doula recertification and trainer reapproval with DONA International and most other childbirth certification organizations. The Summit focused on key areas for professional growth offering continuing education hours for recertification with DONA International and other organizations that accept DONA contact hours.   Participants will get credit for sessions in which they attend and complete the post-test questions afterward via DONA Elevate.

It is the registrant’s responsibility to ascertain whether this offering meets the requirements of other certifying organizations.

About Our Speakers

The DONA International Speaker Selection Committee selected an excellent speaker line-up.  The committee incorporated keynote addresses alongside working sessions in which doulas can develop leadership skills with tangible take-homes that can be incorporated at the local, national, or international levels.

The topics are relevant to birth and postpartum doula work.  Sessions should enhance your doula skills, as well as practical business sessions, and other relevant professional development topics.

Count the Kicks is a dynamic public health program developed in 2008 by Happy Birthday Inc. centering on stillbirth prevention. Their goal is for it to be standard care for all birthing people to count kicks in the third trimester. In this session (recorded Dec 2023), Christine Tucker, Health Equity Coordinator, and TaKiesha Smith, Indiana Ambassador, from Count the Kicks will share evidence on Count the Kicks and discuss ways the doulas can integrate It with their clients. 

1.0 Contact Hours- DONA Town hall that took place on December 7, 2023

https://countthekicks.org/ 

In this session, you will have the opportunity to:
• Gain knowledge about the Childbirth and Breastfeeding Support Demonstration
• Understand the criteria to become a part of our network
• Learn about the participating countries

This DONA Town Hall is for informational purposes and DOES NOT constitute approved continuing education for certification and therefore will not have a certificate of completion. 

The International Childbirth Initiative is a global movement that includes obstetricians, midwives, and doulas working together to advance safe and respectful MotherBaby-Family-centered care. Throughout 2023, we added hospitals and birth centers around the world and have worked to advance training and support for doulas around the world. In this session, Debra Pascali-Bonaro and Michelle Skaer Therrien, Executive Director of the International Childbirth Initiative (ICI) share the 12 steps for safe and respectful care, the role of doulas, and our work to improve collaboration among healthcare professionals and integration of doulas into health systems.

1.5 DONA Contact Hours

https://icichildbirth.org/

In this session, Everyone Wants to Hold the Baby, Who Will Hold Mother?® we will discuss the universal needs of all mothers and birthing people. The session will contribute to the understanding of why perinatal mental health is a public health imperative, and recognize the continuum of perinatal mood disorders and how they affect the perinatal family.

This session was recorded as part of the 2023 in-person conference and the recording is presented with the slide presentation/audio.