Patty Brennan is a Michigan Midwife and Doula trainer with a wide range of excellent and unique education for parents, doulas and midwives on her Center for the Childbearing Year Website. She offers a dual purpose Belly Mapping and Palpation class to parents and aspiring midwives. (What a brilliant idea!) Patty has nice things to say about my new Belly Mapping Workbook on Patty’s prolific blog and on her website (She has a cute typo on my name, I think I’ll claim it, “Gaily.” Thanks, Patty!)

Patty’s great idea is to bring pregnant women in their last trimester together with aspiring and fresh midwives so that the women and the emerging care providers can learn the mysteries of fetal positioning together. The mother’s are empowered in validating and/or learning their baby’s positions. Plus its a fun and popular gathering. It takes a special teacher to bring together an audience in which their are two varying goals. The goals of a Belly Mapping/Palpation class can fit well with outgoing parents and sensitive aspiring midwives. I’m guessing that the aspiring get a chance to feel the womb-babies of the visiting mothers.

This level of training would best be offered by a very experienced midwife who has had her hands on lots of womb-babies. Palpation is an art and it takes spatial skills and study in books for the details of flexion, lie, and presentations. There are several things that aren’t in books, well, they are now appearing, as in The Belly Mapping Workbook which teaches doulas and fresh midwives as well as parents, and of course, my favorite all inclusive series, Anne Frye’s Holistic Midwifery.

Patty is an excellent teacher with so many great and often unique classes.