How to become a doula: Step by Step
When starting research on how to become a doula, I had no idea where to start and at the time there were quite a few certifications organizations to choose from. I chose an organization that fit my needs and once you become a doula, If you find that you need additional training, that’s OK. I initially thought my doula training should have taught everything I needed but found that some organizations have more in depth trainings about certain topics than others.
Decide what type of doula you want to be.
The most common types are birth doula, postpartum doula, bereavement doula, death doula, fertility doula, and a few other subcategories. If you want to be a birth doula in conjunction with another type, I recommend picking an organization that has training for the other type of work you’d like to do. (i.e. if you want to be a birth and postpartum doula, pick an organization that has both of those trainings)
Decide if you want to do training and certification, this will make it easier to pick an organization to go with.
A lot of organizations will offer a 2-3 day training to cover the important aspects of doula training. In conjunction with that you typically have a certification process. This could include reading books from a designated list, attending certification births/postpartum visits, writing papers, attending classes, getting CPR training, getting food handlers licenses, and taking exams. For a lot of programs the training and certification process may take anywhere from one to three months to complete; this greatly depends on what tasks have to be completed. There are a lot of different opinions on where certification is important but I won’t get into that here. I recommend researching why certification happens and decide if it is important to you.
Pick an organization to train/certify through.
When researching organizations decide what will be important for you to learn for the demographic you will work with. These ideals could include but isn’t limited to:
Do they teach racial disparities in healthcare?
Do they teach about trauma informed care?
What is their stance on a doula attending unassisted births?
Are they faith based?
Do they also focus on the business side of doula work?
Are they affordable?
Do I have to pay yearly/monthly fee to stay a member?
These are just a few ideals to think about when choosing, but make sure whoever you train with aligns with who you want to be as a doula.
4. Train with the organization.
I’ll list a few common organizations and a few facts about them. There are hundreds of organizations but these are a few common ones you may stumble upon during your search
DONA: Widely known and accepted for insurance reimbursement (cost can range from $600-$1200 for whole process and additional books are required to certify)
Madriella: Affordable, No certification births, Strictly online, Self-Paced (costs $250-$300 and additional required readings)
Childbirth International: Accredited by ANCC, self-paced (costs $720 for birth doula training)
BEST: No certification births, Offers in-person and virtual training (Cost $650)
MamaGlow (Costs about $725)
National Black Doula Association: Caters specifically to black doulas (Cost $825)
Royal Doula Academy: Faith-Based Doula training (Costs $849-$999)
Doula Trainings International: Highly regarded for those in LGBTQ Community (Costs $997)
Bebo Mia: All online but there are virtual meetings consistently (Cost $1679)
International Doula Institute (Cost $790)
ProDoula (Costs $595 for birth doula training)
CAPPA: Offers a lot of different trainings (Costs range from $775-$850)
Stillbirthday: Heavily focuses on Bereavement for their Birth Certification, always runs sales (Price changes but it normally ranges from $45-$90marked down from $250)
Birthing Advocacy Doula Trainings: Teaches trauma informed care and also highly regarded by those in LGBTQ community (Costs about $1050)
I personally trained and certified with Madriella and Stillbirthday. When I first became started my search, affordability and the timing was important to me. Both trainings I took catered to that need. I have another post about Madriella that includes a coupon code here. I liked both trainings and will say that even though the Birth & Bereavement training is priced low through Stillbirthday, it covers a lot of information. Bereavement takes a strong mindset to work through and there were a few times during that training I had to take a break because it can be hard to talk about those things. It’s overall a great training and I’d recommend it to anyone looking to add that to their knowledge.
When on your search for an organization, don’t let price discourage you. Many of them offer payment plans for everyone and scholarships for BIPOC, EMT’s, and Military.
Being a doula has been one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done and I hope you feel the same after becoming one.
