June 29 - July 4, 2022
a 50hr Continuing Education Course (YACEP) through Yoga Alliance

We invite you to step into a powerful circle of women. We invite you to connect with your ancestral and innate life-giving power. We invite you to immerse yourself in learning, sharing, and expanding. This immersive, all-inclusive Holistic Doula Training is a unique opportunity to earn this certification in a retreat setting in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. We will go beyond the robust and deep doula training curriculum to also include morning yoga, sacred ceremony, and song circles. Whether you wish to become a practicing doula or not, this training offers knowledge and experience that every woman can connect with. 
In this course, we believe that childbirth is a transformative event, and pregnant women have access to altered states of consciousness that allow them an expanded perspective of life and of themselves. This culminates in the birthing process.

We realize that many women desire to be witnessed, rather than managed, in this extraordinary experience. In our Matrona Doula Program, we put a different spin on what it really means to support and witness a woman, and we explore what it means to nurture a mom during her childbearing cycle.
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The Matrona Holistic Birth Doula program is comprehensive in it’s scope. We teach a practical and well rounded body of information about childbirth…all the basics…yet the material is presented holistically, with a balance of the intuitive and the clinical.

We understand that birth is a largely non-linear experience that ebbs and flows according to the sensory experience of the mother. Because of that, we have created a curriculum that is both holistic and practical, teaching midwives and doulas to respond the needs of pregnant and birthing women with intelligence and intuition.
This course ​offers a family-centered perspective on birth. Our entire class is dedicated to the exploration of the experience of childbirth and it’s ramifications on the soul, spirit and body.
You will learn:
  • Feminine A&P, the pelvis, the hormones of the reproductive system and the female cycles.
  • How to compute the correct date of birth.
  • How to understand birth as an organic process and how to support a mother’s choices in various places…home, hospital, birthing center.
  • How to articulate and navigate through the cultural perspectives concerning birth.
  • How to nurture a pregnant woman.
  • How the baby navigates the pelvis during the process of labor
  • How labor unfolds without interference and how to facilitate women in that process.
  • Options in childbirth…choosing caregivers, waterbirth, positions for delivery
  • Understanding the cervix…dilation and effacement, cervical lips, ruffling the membranes, Bishop’s score for induction.
  • How to understand some of the controversial topics in childbirth…ultrasound, induction of labor, rupture of membranes,
    Group Beta strep, cord clamping, neonatal jaundice…
  • How to employ healing modalities that facilitate self-direction in mothers and families.
  • How to tend placentas and offer Placenta Readings.
  • How to create win/win and collaborative solutions when things do not go as planned.
  • How to present yourself as a doula in the community and how to integrate your practice of woman care with the knowledge of birth
All packages include all workshops, certification, yoga, 3 abundant vegetarian meals daily, and your choice of accommodation:

$995 - shared yurt

$1095 - private glamping tent
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$1195 - private yurt 

**a 3% Credit Card processing fee will be added to each payment option
Contact Us to pay by check with no extra fees
Questions about the Curriculum & Certification? Contact Whapio:  [email protected]
Questions about the Retreat Center? Contact Jessi:  [email protected]
Schedule
Wed, April 1:
3-5pm Arrival
6pm Dinner
7pm Opening Ceremony

Thurs, April 2:
8-9am Yoga
Breakfast​
10am Morning Session
- Introductions – Hand-outs – Scope of the Class – Certification Requirements
- The Role of the Holistic Doula and her Scope of Practice
- Models of Care – Technocratic to Quantum
- Quantum Caregiving and Creating Soul-level Connections
1pm Lunch
2pm Afternoon Session
- The Importance of the Correct EBD (Estimated Date of Birth)
- The Endocrine System: Hormones as Messengers
- Reproductive and Birthing Hormones
- Birth as an Altered State
6pm Dinner

Fri, April 3:
8-9am Yoga
Breakfast
10am Morning Session
- The Caregivers Spiral
- Ideas not Ideologies in Childbirth
- Brain Wave Patterns and the Neurological Perspective on Childbirth
- The Circle of Nurturing and the Caregivers Greatest Gift
1pm Lunch
2pm Afternoon Session
- Emerging as a Doula: Creating a Brochure, Creating a Lifestyle
- The Journey Begins: Understanding Conception and Reproductive Cycles
- Women as the Ancestral Sex
​6pm Dinner

Sat, April 4:
8-9am Yoga
Breakfast
10am Morning Session
- Undisturbed Birth and the Work of Michel Odent
- The Birth Atlas: Understanding the Uterus, Cervix and Dilation & Effacement
- Cardinal Movements of Labor: How the Baby Navigates the Pelvis
1pm Lunch
2pm - Afternoon Session
- The Holistic Stages of Labor: A New Language for a New Paradigm
- The Work of Constance Benyon: The Two Stages of Second Stage
- Vertical Birth…even in a hospital
- Non-invasive strategies for checking the progress of labor
- Checking the cervix on the foot!
​6pm Dinner

Sun, April 5
8-9am Yoga
Breakfast
10am - Morning Session
- Facilitating and supporting a Woman in Labor
- Non-pharmacological Strategies for Pain Relief
- When Labor does not go as planned
- Understanding Position and Posterior Presentation
1pm Lunch
2pm - Afternoon Session
- Navigating Controversial Topics in Childbirth
- Who’s in Charge of the Birth?
- Techniques for Collaboration and Creating Win/Win solutions
- Placenta Alchemy:
- Placenta Medicine…Placenta Readings
​5pm - Closing Ceremony
Lead Facilitator: Whapio
​Whapio Diane Bartlett directs The Matrona Foundation, a non-profit founded in 2004 in Asheville, NC as a response to the growing numbers of women and families without reasonable access to childbirth education, childbirth support services and mediation/conflict resolution options..  Whapio has been an Independent Midwife for over 30 years, attending women and families in birth and educating women in the Arts of Midwifery and Healing. She also teaches Homeopathy and is affiliated with HANA (Hahnemann Academy of North America).  Whapio has studied homeopathy and Qigong with Robin Murphy, ND for over 20 years.  She has also studied healing at The Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine and the Beijing Massage Hospital in China.  Whapio is a Community Mediator and counselor for family concerns.  She speaks and writes frequently about Quantuum Midwifery and Returning Birth to the Family.
Read more about Whapio here

​Support: Jessi Luna
Jessi first met Whapio at the SE Women's Herbal Conference in 2016. She attended the Holistic Doula Training with Whapio in 2019 and immediately knew it was an offering for Seven Springs. Jessi gave birth to her son Kai in the Peru yurt at Seven Springs, and she is delighted to open this space to empower more women and mothers in the power of birth. Jessi will offer morning yoga, she teaches a Vinyasa based practice to combine elements of dance and natural movement with traditional yogic sequencing. She incorporates attention to rhythm of the breath, and allows for organic movement to flow in each pose.  A creative entrepreneur at heart, Jessi explores how to do business in a good way for the planet and people. Jessi is a cofounder of Kula Collective Yoga School along with 6 other friends, as well as Seven Springs along with her husband and parents.