Spinning Babies®️ Aware Practitioner Workshop

Upcoming Advanced Workshops

Below you’ll find our upcoming advanced workshops. Clicking on a specific event will give you the opportunity to register to attend.

San Diego

San Diego, CA — March 2025

Registration now open!

About

Hands on practice! 4 days of advanced learning with birth professionals across the world to promote body balance for fetal positioning and pregnancy comfort. You’ll build on the Spinning Babies® Workshop skills, learn new ones adapted to a scope of practice as a bodyworker or midwife, with case studies and integrative group work. Transform your awareness of how you come into relationship with the pregnant body and the baby within. We will address ways we can integrate and, for some transform, your bodywork or midwifery practice. Skills learned during the Advanced Workshop can be used in your own practice for pregnancy, birth, and non-pregnant people.

For Bodyworkers, Midwives, Doctors and Nurses

Midwives (traditional, out-of-hospital, & hospital-based), chiropractors, physical therapists, massage therapists, traditional bodyworkers, acupuncturists, nurses and physicians.

Eligibility requires a practice in which manual therapy or hands-on manipulation is allowed by professional scope. A doula or yoga teacher doesn’t have the professional scope of practice for us to refer pregnant people to have bodywork for fetal positioning.

If you have questions about your eligibility, please email spbcpe@spinningbabies.com.

Pre-requisites: Must have minimum 1 year of experience with bodywork/birthwork and have practiced within the past 2 years.

Must have taken a Spinning Babies^® Workshop within the past 3 years and at least 3 months prior to the SpBAP Workshop. If you are already a Spinning Babies^® Aware Practitioner or have attended a Spinning Babies^® Certified Parent Educator Training, this requirement is waived.

Read more details on pre-requisites below.

Topics Covered

Embodied consent
Pacing, touch and the pregnant nervous system
Pain as an indicator of imbalance
Anatomy and fetal positioning
Releases and balancing for fetal positioning
How to do general and individualized sessions
Specific considerations for tracking restrictions
Integration into a bodywork or midwifery practice
Case studies woven throughout the course

This course is a compilation of embodied practices that can be used to address pain and fetal positioning. We will explore practical applications of anatomy, bodywork techniques to restore balance and space, levels of touch and pacing, and awareness of the nervous system. We will present basic releases and then drop into individualized and in depth approaches to creating and balancing the space within.

Four full days of training can transform your awareness of how you come into relationship with the pregnant body and the baby within. We will also address ways we can integrate and, for some transform, your bodywork or midwifery practice.

Spinning Babies® Aware Practitioner Membership Listing

With many millions of independent visitors to our site each year, a huge mailing list and following on social media, we get daily requests from parents looking for support in pregnancy and birth. We want to help pregnant people identify Spinning Babies® Aware Practitioners and have a directory for members listed on our website where parents can search for Spinning Babies® Aware Practitioners in their area!

How to join the Spinning Babies® Aware Practitioner (SpBAP) Membership Listing:

Complete a 1-day or 2-day Spinning Babies® Workshop within 4 calendar years before attending the Spinning Babies® Aware Practitioner Workshop.
Complete the Spinning Babies® Aware Practitioner Advanced Workshop
Submit the SpBAP Application after completing the advanced workshop or meeting alternate pathway requirements listed below.
Pay the annual $100 membership listing fee
After submitting the application, email info@spinningbabies.com with the following information:
- Signed copy of Spinning Babies code of ethics and scope of practice.
- Signed copy of the Aware Practitioner Agreement.
- Headshot to be used for your listing
- Certificate of Advanced Workshop completion

Pre-requisites for attending the Spinning Babies^® Aware Practitioner Advanced Workshop

Spinning Babies® Workshop

Attend either a 1 or 2-day Spinning Babies® Workshop. The Workshop must have been taken within the past four calendar years. If you are actively using Spinning Babies® within your practice and would like to discuss this requirement, please email spbcpe@spinningbabies.com Registration to the Aware Practitioner Workshop cannot be accepted until our records show you have completed the prerequisite Spinning Babies® Workshop.*

*If you are already a Spinning Babies® Aware Practitioner or have attended a Spinning Babies® Certified Parent Educator Training, this requirement is waived.

Please note that attendance at a Spinning Babies® Breech Basics Workshop, Resolving Shoulder Dystocia Workshop, or at conference sessions are not sufficient for meeting this workshop requirement.

Bodyworker, birth provider or nurse

Bodyworkers* with experience such as an osteopath, chiropractor, physical therapist, therapeutic massage therapist are prepared for this class. Experienced pregnancy bodyworkers with traditional knowledge are also welcome. Birth care providers are Midwives (traditional, out of hospital, or working in a hospital), Labor and Delivery Nurses, and Doctors. Each has a license and scope of practice to do hands-on patient care.

In this course, you will learn advanced skills to promote body balance. These skills can be specialized for breech body balancing and can be used in pregnancy, birth and for generic balancing outside the childbearing year. The course is focused on hands-on experience with the advanced techniques, along with case studies and integrative group work.

*Note: Must have minimum one year of experience with bodywork/birthwork and must have practiced within the past two years.

Who is NOT eligible to attend? We are not able to accept doulas, yoga teachers, or childbirth educators in the Aware Practitioner Workshop. Eligibility requires a practice in which manual therapy or hands-on manipulation is allowed by professional scope.

Successful completion of prerequisites, 4 day training, or alternate pathways listed below, will make the participant eligible to apply for membership listing on our website as a Spinning Babies® Aware Practitioner.

Continuing Education Credits

ANCC Continuing Education credits awarded for this advanced workshop! Additional CE’s being applied for! For more information email spbcpe@spinningbabies.com.

Access for Black and Indigenous Professionals

Our Approved Trainers and Gail Tully commit to providing Equity Seats in our Spinning Babies®️ Aware Practitioner Workshops for pregnancy bodyworkers and midwives. Read more about general eligibility before applying on this form.

Black Birth Workers may not need a form to receive access (Equity Seat) to our 1- or 2-day Spinning Babies^® Workshop. Simply, find out if a seat is available by emailing the Approved Trainer teaching the workshop. The Approved Trainer will let you know if there is a spot available and how to get registered and continuing education credits.

Link to Aware Practitioner Workshop BWOC Equity Seat form for a pregnancy bodyworker of color.

Priority goes to a qualifying member of a community with statistical disparities and within driving distance (local area) of the workshop. Those flying into the workshop location are eligible after adequate time or opportunity has been given to the local community without an applicant coming forward.

Attendance at the 1- or 2-day Spinning Babies^® Workshop is required before attending the advanced training, but an Equity Seat may potentially be given for both.

Alternative pathway to join the Spinning Babies® Aware Practitioner Membership Listing

Complete TWO of our 1-day or 2-day Spinning Babies® Workshops, one of which must be completed within 4 years before applying to become a Spinning Babies® Aware Practitioner.
Complete one of these approved Spinning Babies® Aware Practitioner Workshops listed below:
1. Carol Phillips’ Dynamic Body Balancing Levels I, II, and III
2. Northern Lights Wellness Professional Education’s “Integral Touch of Birth” 4-day course
Submit the Alternative SpBAP Application for listing
Pay the annual $100 membership listing fee.
Email info@spinningbabies.com with the following information:
1. Signed copy of Spinning Babies® code of ethics and scope of practice.
2. Signed copy of the Aware Practitioner Agreement.
3. Headshot that you would like to use for your directory listing

Instructors

Emma Moreland

Emma Moreland is a birth worker and body worker based out of San Diego, CA. After the births of her five children and facing a lack of representation, Emma decided she would pursue a career in midwifery. Emma works to create a safe space and community for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color who are seeking birth and body services as well as information and support, working specifically to reduce the Black perinatal and infant mortality rates in the US. On her path to becoming a midwife, Emma has studied birth work, body work, Birthing From Within, and craniosacral therapy. Emma graduated from Nizhoni Institute of Midwifery in 2020 and is set to take the licensing exam in the fall of 2021, after which she will be a Licensed Midwife. As a Spinning Babies® Aware Practitioner and Spinning Babies® World Confluence speaker, Emma has committed herself to the education about and implementation of embodied consent in birth and body workers, as well as clients. Connect with Emma on her website at intuitivehandsmidwifery.com or on Instagram at intuitivehandmidwifery.

Instructors

Rachel Shapiro

Rachel is a Spinning Babies^® Approved Trainer, a licensed and certified midwife, and prenatal and postpartum yoga teacher from MN, USA, practicing for many years in various settings of birth center and home birth practices. She has been a certified massage therapist for over 10 years and currently has a private practice for body work in Ein Karem, Jerusalem. She has studied Spinning Babies for over 8 years and contributes to Spinning Babies® educational materials. Rachel completed her BSN (and is currently completing her CNM) at Shaarei Tzedek Medical Center, and has been privileged to teach Spinning Babies to midwives, doulas, and physicians in Israel and around the world. She is currently developing a hospital-based research study on Spinning Babies.

Instructors

Nicole Morales

Nicole Morales is a Spinning Babies® Aware Instructor and Practioner as well as a Spinning Babies® Approved Trainer and homebirth midwife. She integrates her skills into her practice in advocating for breech as well through prenatal, birth, and postpartum care. She is co-author of The Breech Release: Opening Pathways for Midwifery and Prenatal Bodywork and spends her time thinking more deeply about the birthworker community uniting over physiology! She can be found at artofopening.com . You can also find her workshops for mentorship in the Spinning Babies online course catalogue for Breech for Pregnant Parents and Breech Pregnancy for Practitioners.

Instructors

Jamie Mossay

Jamie Mossay (she/her) has been serving the San Diego community as a massage therapist/bodyworker for over 20 years and started attending births as a doula in 2009. She is a mother, Birth Story Listener®, Certified Birthing From Within® Mentor and Facilitator, and a Spinning Babies® Aware Practitioner and Instructor. Jamie has studied, practiced, and taught numerous modalities working primarily with pregnant, laboring, and postpartum people and their families and those who serve them. She is the creator of the DANCES® approach to prenatal bodywork and Birthing From Within’s Touch From Within course, a co-author (with Nicole Morales) and illustrator of The Breech Release: Opening Pathways for Midwifery and Prenatal Bodywork, and co-creator of the Spinning Babies® Online Course: Breech for Parents which offers holistic support for navigating breech pregnancy for both parents and practitioners. You can learn more about her work at jamiemossay.com and thebreechrelease.com.

Instructors

Jenny Blyth

Jenny Blyth is an independent birth educator, birthworker, bodyworker and Spinning Babies® Approved Trainer, who has supported women and their families through natural birth at home for over 35 years. Her birthwork focuses on cultivating body awareness, self-help skills and self-responsibility – to realize potential in birth and reduce trauma for parents, the baby and care providers. Her bodywork practice specializes in pelvic bodywork for wellbeing, balance and comfort. Jenny has been teaching body-oriented Birthwork workshops for over 15 years, both in Australia and overseas.

Jenny is also project coordinator for Lao Birthwork, teaching hands-on and emergency skills to health staff in remote areas of Northern Laos.

She lives in the Australian bush with her partner. They are parents of 3 grown adults and have 3 grandchildren.

She is also an author – Birthwork and The Down to Earth Birth Book, and filmmaker – A World of Birthworkers, The Big Stretch and The Big Stretch Sequel.

Instructors

Fiona Hallinan

Fiona has been a midwife for 30 years. She is also a registered nurse, a maternal & child health nurse, a birth educator and bodyworker. She has worked with expectant mothers in Melbourne public and private birthing hospitals as well as having supported many families with the birth of their babies at home.

Interwoven throughout her midwifery practice has been an involvement in midwifery education and the teaching of Birthwork Workshops. The focus of all birth related teaching is on the dynamic pelvis and how to make space for the baby. Fiona is also a Spinning Babies® Approved Trainer. When she is not teaching workshops, Fiona offers bodywork sessions to women in a 1:1 capacity, with particular emphasis on internal pelvic release work.

Fiona’s drive to teach is fueled by a desire to see childbearing women hold birth knowledge, learn to honor their pelvic treasures and work with their innate power with the intention to eradicate birth trauma.

Spinning Babies® COVID-19 Policy

The health and safety of everyone attending our training is our highest priority. We are taking preventative measures for all of our workshops to reduce the transmission of COVID-19, but we cannot eliminate all risks. Each participant is responsible for their health and safety within the workshop group. Our safety measures include, but are not limited to, making sure all participants are monitoring themselves before and during the event.

Please be sure the following statements are TRUE:

I am not experiencing any symptoms of illness such as cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, fever, chills, repeated shaking with chills, muscle pain, headache, sore throat, or new loss of taste or smell.
I do not believe I have been exposed to someone with a suspected and/or confirmed case of the Coronavirus/COVID-19.
I have been diagnosed with Coronavirus/Covid-19 AND I have been cleared as non contagious by state or local public health authorities.