The Spinning Babies^® Workshop

Spinning Babies^® asks, “Where’s Baby?”

One simple question leads to profound solutions. Optimize your response to long or painful labor, fetal malposition, or simply add confidence to birth.

We believe baby’s position is a clue to the anatomy. We use physiology to “make room for baby.”

Spinning Babies® Aware Practitioner workshop

Build on the Spinning Babies® workshop skills you’ve previously learned, and learn skills to promote body balance for fetal positioning and pregnancy comfort in this 4-day training. These skills can be used in your practice for pregnancy, birth and non-pregnant people.

Learn more about the Aware Practitioner workshop

Spinning Babies® Certified Parent Educator training

This four-day exclusive training is for experienced childbirth educators. Once certified after completing training, you can teach pregnant parents with our licensed module and add the Spinning Babies® Certified Parent Educator to your existing childbirth education offerings.

Learn more about Certified Parent Educator training

Get CEs for completing a Spinning Babies® workshop

Midwives, nurses, doctors frequently say they are in the Operating Room less often. New parents reflect on the power and joy of their (easier) births!

The American Academy of Family Physicians has granted Spinning Babies® Workshop Continuing Medical Education credits.

The American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation recognizes Spinning Babies^® as a provider of nursing continuing professional development.

Nurses may count their attendance hours on their document of completion for credit hours.

Some doula and childbirth education certifying organizations may recognize the contact hours awarded by one or both of the above organizations. Check your organization guidelines if you need continuing education for attending a Spinning Babies® Workshop.

Approved Trainers in California, Europe, Israel, Australia, and New Zealand have local contact hour recognition.

Attendance is not a certification in Spinning Babies^®. You can use what you learn but cannot promote your business or classes with our phrases, arrangements, or brand name unless you have the matching license from completing one of our advanced programs.

Have you completed a Spinning Babies® workshop? You’re eligible to complete one of our advanced programs:

Learn more about Certified Parent Educator training

Learn more about the Aware Practitioner workshop

Spinning Babies^® wants birth providers to know how to help all parents access their innate ability to experience more comfort in pregnancy and ease in birth.

Spinning Babies^® Approved Trainers, Spinning Babies^® Certified Parent Educators, and Spinning Babies^® Aware Practitioners are licensed to use the Spinning Babies^® name and logo in their promotion. Only they can use our service marks, such as, Spinning Babies^® Three Principles: Balance, Gravity, and Movement^SM, Three Balances^SM, or The Pelvic Levels Solutions^SM.

Who are these workshops for?

The Spinning Babies^® Workshop offers continuing education for midwives and nurses in many areas. Our workshop is open to other professionals who serve people during pregnancy and birth, such as, doctors, childbirth educators, doulas, prenatal yoga instructors, chiropractors, massage therapists, fascial therapy practitioners, and community health workers.

The Spinning Babies® Approach in action

“The presentation is key to understanding the concepts. This cannot be understood by just reading the website.” -Patty, CNM in Minnesota, right after the workshop… then, Patty emailed again, 6 days after the workshop:

“WOW! It worked. “I was blessed with the perfect labor situation, prime stalled x 4 hours at 8cm, LOP. She slept through side-lying release, 3 contractions on each side (took 30 minutes). She got out of bed, and was immediately in transition. Baby born 1 hour later!”

“Had my first post Spinning Babies^® birth 12 hours after finishing the workshop! She breathed her baby down beautifully into the water! Lots of Spinning Babies^® and other preparations prior to her amazing VBAC. Such an incredible way to finish up the weekend.” -Anjela, Doula in Minnesota

1-day Spinning Babies^® Workshop:

Class time: 7 to 8 hours
Start time: Varies depending on location
Lunch: Ranges from 60-90 minutes

2-day Spinning Babies^® Workshop:

Class time: 13 hours
Start time: Varies depending on location
Lunch: Ranges from 60-90 minutes

Note: Both the 1-day and the 2-day workshops teach our basic curriculum. There is a there is more hands-on covered and slower paced compared to the fast paced 1-day workshop.

Workshop topics include:

A new Paradigm for the experienced provider in childbirth ease and labor progress
The role of “Soft Tissues” in pregnancy, labor, and fetal position (muscles, ligaments, connective tissue)
Common causes and effects of posterior position
Pelvic levels and birth position
Resolving the stalled labor
Practice activities for pregnancy comfort and ease of labor

Day 2 Adds:

Additional hands-on practice
A technique for sacral mobility
Both introduce you to the Spinning Babies® premise and foundational curriculum.

Both introduce you to the Spinning Babies^® premise and basic introduction.

Why attend a workshop?

Use your wisdom better. You will be able to identify and help pregnant and birthing women with a new approach to comfort, pain relief, fetal positioning, and labor progress. Reassess “what you know” and take birth care to the next level.

Workshop Outline:

Changing the paradigm for labor progress – Spinning Babies^® asks a new question
Anatomy of Birth and Balance
Normal Cardinal Movements
Birth anatomy – The uterus is not a water balloon
Baby – head down is not enough
Daily activities – range of motion rather than assume maternal positioning. Rest Smart^SM to maintain.
Body balance for comfort, fetal positioning, and/or birth ease
Pregnancy (and birth): The Three Balances^SM
Credits and contraindications
A fascia jiggle technique
Forward-leaning inversion: using stretch receptors to untwist/lengthen the utero-sacral ligament for comfort, dilation ease, and/or improved fetal position
Side-lying Release for repositioning uterus, softening the pelvic floor, releasing buttock and hip muscles
Comparing Labor Patterns with 5 common stalls in labor
Compares the occipital posterior labor (“asymmetric labor”) to a progressing labor (“symmetrical labor”) by contraction pattern
The symmetrical labor pattern associated with the anterior presentation or well fitting OP
The asymmetrical labor pattern associated with the posterior presentation
When enough is enough; labor pattern indications for cesarean delivery due to cephalo-pelvic disproportion compared to indications that baby can rotate to fit the pelvis
Need for rotation compared to slow but continuing progress
Contracted inlet: Signs of CPD compared to need for rotation
Where’s Baby?
Diameters of the pelvis in relation to stalled labors and solutions.
Introduction to the Three Levels SolutionsSM
of the pelvis as a starting point for solving a stalled labor
Identifying Pelvic Level issues causing labor dystocia
Open the inlet Engagement and mis-engagement at the brim
Open the Midpelvis
Opening the Outlet to finish the birth

Approved Trainer Jennifer Walker explains: “The course [introduces you to] the concepts of Spinning Babies^® which you can integrate into your work as doula, midwife or childbirth educator. You will get a certification of attendance. You will not be a certified Spinning Babies^® presenter or certified “Baby Spinner.” [We don’t even use that phrase!] That level of knowledge is much too involved to learn in one workshop, even by repeating it. Your certification of attendance is proof of the contact hours for the workshop.”

Costs

Prices vary based on location and trainer. Spinning Babies^® is required to collect a sales tax for US states (except where exempt), Canada and Australia (GST).

Promoting Access

One seat (minimum) per workshop is given to a Black and Indigenous birth professionals of Color as part of Spinning Babies® commitment to reduce death and birth injuries in Black and Indigenous communities. Eligible professionals are birth workers who actively attend births and/or bodyworkers with a pregnancy focus, usually local to the workshop. Simply contact the Approved Trainer teaching the workshop.

Each trainer has their own policy and must be contacted personally but all have committed to a seat in the class for Black and Indigenous birth workers already attending births. Whether a doctor or a doula, this offer is the same. Please contact the Approved Trainer about your plans to attend in order to secure a seat because we limit the size of each workshop.

Each Approved Trainer offers one or more Equity Seats for birth workers of Black or Indigenous birth workers (in some countries outside the US or Canada the person may be of another community suffering birth inequities) to promote more access to birth education and skills training.

A seat per workshop, as long as there is still space when a request comes in. So apply early, before the class seats are full. Overall space is limited and a spot is saved only by booking with the special link the Approved Trainer (or Gail) gives you. It is easy to arrange your seat.

If someone wants to come who isn’t attending births, they can email the Approved Trainer doing the workshop of their interest and say what they do and why they want the workshop information. Acceptance would depend on space available since birth workers and pregnancy-focused bodyworkers are prioritized.

No one will be announced or described as an equity seat recipient or identified in any way other than the way they introduce themselves in the class introduction. Write your name in the spot when you fill out the free/reduced price ticket registration in the way you want to be recorded for continuing education (professional name and title). (To be in our private Facebook group, you’ll have to let us know the email address you use for Facebook.)

Contact Approved Trainers individually from their workshop postings to let someone know your request to attend. You will get a link to register and then you will get handouts and other support materials.

BIPOC Access for Our Bigger Events:

For the 4-day workshops, all pre-requisites are the same as other participants of those programs and an application is filled out.

For our conferences, watch for a link on our website or in our social media to an application in our registration process. Don’t pay til you know. We prioritize 30 seats at our virtual conference for free spots.

Why don’t we have low-income and LGBTQ+ equity seats? Each seat we give is company income or Approved Trainer income and expenses keep getting larger as we grow. Therefore, Gail Tully set an intention to give her money to increase BIPOC seats as her way to help save the lives of Black and Indigenous children and their birth parent, the lives lost due to racism.

Many worthy and wonderful birth professionals give their time to help families and birth givers without charging much money. Some, like LGBTQ+ and recently again, Asian communities face significant challenges from discrimination. In 1999, Gail chose the boundary of where time and money is dedicated because of intense mortality disparity in the USA. Equity Access isn’t simply a free chair in the room (“Can’t I just come be in the background and watch?”) Each free seat costs the company time and resources to support each Equity Access participant to have the same documentation and recognition in our records as a paying or full paying participant. That’s our commitment. We want to offer equal relationship and not have “a fly on the wall” participant. Our boundary keeps clarity and frankly, keeps the workload on our small staff somewhat manageable (is that achievable when trying to change birth on Earth?).

However, there are a few places in the world that BIPOC Access wouldn’t address the disparities in the larger area of the workshop. In the EU we may include a person of the Romany Community in addition to an African European. Outside the US and Canada, contact the Approved Trainer.

Equity Access is not a traditional scholarship based on income. An equity seat is a restorative measure, an invitation to explore Spinning Babies® and how the paradigm of physiology first may be beneficial to BIPOC communities, and a social commitment by our small company doing our part with a huge social inequity.

We offer at least one seat a workshop to an active birth worker (or a pregnancy focused professional, but not retired or about to start soon) as long as that person is BIPOC. This seat is available for each public workshop and most private workshops. (A private workshop is one that a hospital or group has for their staff, doulas, etc. so that seat can go to BIPOC L and D staff or providers of the sponsoring hospital.)

Refunds

Each Approved Trainer sets their own refund policy.

Registrants for events canceled by the Approved Trainer will receive a full refund, or may transfer to another workshop given by the same Approved Trainer within the same fiscal year at no cost. In the event of cancellation, neither the Approved Trainer nor Spinning Babies^® is responsible for refunding travel expenses. Weather, natural disaster, illness or other “Acts of God” or government are reasons an Approved Trainer may cancel. Believe us, we don’t want to cancel.

Can’t attend?

Download the Spinning Babies^® Parent Class for a similar outline to Spinning Babies^® Workshop (which is designed for experienced Birth Keepers). The Parent Class is like a childbirth education class II, or as my sister said, “It is what I would have wanted when I was pregnant – childbirth education for a birth nerd.”

Check out our online courses in our shop. We add new ones every couple of months.

The Spinning Babies® Workshop