Enrollment for this course is now closed.
General Training Information
Since 2013 we have been training and supporting doulas nation wide!
Our training is taught by Nicole Deggins, a Certified Nurse Midwife and experienced labor nurse with over 25 years of experience working with birthing families. Our training is full of insight and wisdom obtained while working directly on “the inside”. Based on the model of the community health worker, the SMP Community Birth Sister (doula) Training takes a multicultural approach and puts the experiences of black women at the forefront.
Our training combines the physical, psychological, and spiritual aspects of pregnancy as we incorporate wisdoms from various Indigenous and African spiritual systems.
This high energy training takes place over 10 consecutive weeks. LIVE Video/ Virtual Sessions will begin in the evening on Tuesday, October 12th and continue until Dec 14th. Each session will begin at 4pm CST and will last approximately 4 hours. At the end of this training, you will have the information you need to support families prenatally, during pregnancy, labor, birth and the postpartum period.
All sessions will be recorded. Access to recordings will be granted to enrolled students until June 2022.
Topics Covered
Pre-Conception Care
Understanding Fertility
Pregnancy
Herbs and Nutrition
Common Discomforts of Pregnancy
Infant & Maternal Mortality
Perinatal Disparities
Helping Families Through Loss
Community Outreach
Stages of Labor and Birth
Medical Interventions
Supporting the family during labor
The Post Partum Period
Breastfeeding
The Birth Sister as Entrepreneur
And More...
*Note* We do use woman-centered language
Live Attendance or proof of listening to all recorded sessions is required for certification.
The total investment for this training is $750. Payment plans are available.
This investment covers the full training, downloadable training documents, a training kit that will be mailed to you prior to the start of class, & access to the recordings of Live Video/Virtual Sessions through June 2022. At the completion of this training, you will be able to participate in our monthly continuing education calls.
Registration CLOSES Monday, October 4th! Use the registration links below to get signed up.
Read about our refund policy on our FAQs page. If you have additional questions contact us at [email protected]
About the instructor
Midwife... Trainer... Coach... Advocate Nicole Deggins
Nicole Deggins is one of the country’s leading birth advocacy experts recently named "The Midwife Shifting the Narrative" by ESSENCE Magazine. She is a sought after trainer, public speaker and community educator working to eliminate perinatal disparities and bring transparency to prenatal education and the medical obstetrical system. With over two decades of experience working inside the medical obstetrical system, Nicole’s views and style of training are radically different. Her combination of real life experiences, combined with her vivid storytelling, her willingness to share “insider secrets” and her unprecedented passion, allow her to connect with her students and her speaking audiences in a full and unique way. Nicole uses a powerful delivery style to inspire individuals toward a paradigm shift about birth and birth justice. Nicole is the creator of The Birth Plan Myth™ and the Sista Midwife® Birth Sister/Doula training. Prior to starting her work with Sista Midwife Productions, Nicole received her BS in Nursing from Georgetown University, and completed a dual degree program at Emory University where she fulfilled the requirements for the MS in Nursing with a concentration in midwifery, and an MPH with a concentration in Health Policy and Management. During her clinical career, Nicole has practiced as a midwife in Washington DC, Mississippi, and Louisiana, and has worked as a labor and delivery nurse in numerous public and private settings throughout the country.
Praise for this course:
D. Perkins
This Sista Midwife doula training was nothing short of amazing!! I loved every single minute of it and learned so much. Nicole has such a beautiful spirit and her energy is so contagious. She created a sisterhood and has given us so much confidence in our future work as doulas. Thank you so much Nicole for taking the time out to train us. There's no other training I can imagine that would have taken me on such a spiritual, emotional, heart warming and informative journey such as this one. I would recommend it to anyone looking to be a birth worker.
I. Franco
I absolutely loved this course! Everything about this course was an ode to our ancestral right as black women doing birth work (especially). It gave me a new and empowered sense of confidence to know what it is to do birth work and gave me crucial knowledge to pass down to my own daughters.
S. Jones
Sista Nicole is leading the revolution. She is a natural born educator that empowered and inspired a virtual community. Not too many people can captivate you on a Monday evening, but Nicole did. She came with the facts, the stories, and the love and that is all you can ask for when doing this critical work.
B. Doran
The class was way more than I could've ever expected. Nicole's passion behind birthwork sparked a deep passion within myself to know and study this work. After taking this class, I am definitely prepared to support women before, during, and after labor. Thank you so much.