Spinning Babies® Aware Practitioner Workshop

4-days of advanced learning for bodyworkers, midwives, and nurses

Upcoming Advanced Workshops

Find and register for upcoming trainings.

About

Join the Spinning Babies® Aware Practitioner Listing for 4-days of advanced learning. Embody our paradigm for fetal positioning in this clinical course for professionals.

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.

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.

Midwifery, chiropractic, and RN CEUs being applied for!

Hands-on Practice

Learn advanced skills to promote body balance for fetal positioning and pregnancy comfort. Use skills in pregnancy, birth, and non-pregnant people. 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.

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
  • Breech and transverse lie
  • Specific considerations for tracking restrictions
  • ECV preparation and follow-up
  • Integration into a bodywork or midwifery practice
  • Muscles balancing and fascial releases
  • 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.   

Pre-requisites for Spinning Babies® Aware Practitioners

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.

To be eligible for membership on our Spinning Babies® Aware Practitioner listing you must complete the following pre-requisites:

  1. Spinning Babies® Workshop

Attend either a 1 or 2-day Spinning Babies® Workshop.  The Workshop must have been taken within the past three calendar years but not closer to the workshop than 3 months before. 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.

  1. 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 will make the participant eligible to apply for membership on a list of Spinning Babies® Aware Practitioners:

  • Completion of at least one full-day (7 CEU hours) Spinning Babies® Workshop.
  • Your first Spinning Babies® Workshop must be completed before registering for and attending the Aware Practitioner Workshop, and not closer than 3 months.
  • Successful completion of the 4-day Aware Practitioner Workshop.
  • Sign the Code of Ethics and Scope of Practice Agreement
  • Application for and annual renewal of Spinning Babies® membership listing – $100 annually

Continuing Education Credits

The American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation recognizes Spinning Babies as a provider of nursing continuing professional development.
Nurses, Physicians and Nurse Practitioners may count their attendance hours on their document of completion for credit hours. Physicians may submit the Document of Attendance to ACME for continuing education credit.

    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.

      Register for an Aware Practitioner Workshop

      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® Aware Practitioner Membership Listing

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

      1. Complete a 1-day or 2-day Spinning Babies® Workshop within 3 calendar years before attending the Spinning Babies® Aware Practitioner Workshop.
      2. Complete the Spinning Babies® Aware Practitioner Workshop or one of the alternative workshops listed below.
      3. Submit the SpBAP Application for listing, including:
        1. A brief bio or description of your work as a practitioner.
        2. Signed copy of Spinning Babies code of ethics and scope of practice.
        3. Signed copy of the Aware Practitioner Agreement.
        4. Pay the annual $100 membership listing fee.
      4. Email info@spinningbabies.com with the following:
        1. Headshot to be used for your listing
        2. Certificate of completion

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

      1. Complete TWO of our 1-day or 2-day Spinning Babies® Workshops, one of which must be completed within 3 years before applying to become a SpBAP.
      2. Complete one of these approved Spinning Babies® Aware Practitioner Workshops:
      3. Submit the Alternative SpBAP Application for listing, including:
        1. A brief bio or description of your work as a practitioner.
        2. Signed copy of Spinning Babies code of ethics and scope of practice.
        3. Signed copy of the Aware Practitioner Agreement.
        4. Pay the annual $100 membership listing fee.
      4. Send the headshot that you’d like to use in your listing to info@spinningbabies.com.

      Register for an Aware Practitioner Workshop

      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:

      1.  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.
      2.  I do not believe I have been exposed to someone with a suspected and/or confirmed case of the Coronavirus/COVID-19.
      3. I have been diagnosed with Coronavirus/Covid-19 AND I have been cleared as non contagious by state or local public health authorities.

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