DOULA TRAINING · APPLICATIONS OPEN IN NOVEMBER
RISING MOTHER
I’ve rebuilt Rising Mother’s doula education from the roots. The first international cohort of The Full Spectrum Doula Training begins in January 2027, and the doors open very soon.
THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN KNOWING WHAT A DOULA DOES AND UNDERSTANDING WHAT A FAMILY NEEDS.
THE DOULA FAMILIES ARE HOPING FOR
Imagine walking into any birth room knowing exactly what is happening in the body in front of you. Holding a family through a loss with the same steadiness you bring to a joyful birth. Speaking with midwives and doctors as a respected colleague. Bringing ceremony into the room with depth and integrity. That’s who this training forms.
FULL SPECTRUM MEANS ALL OF IT
Conception, pregnancy, birth, loss, postpartum and early family life. Anatomy and physiology you can actually use at a birth.
Psychology and neuroscience to understand what a woman is moving through. Ancestral knowledge and ceremony, taught with rigor. Hands-on skills, and the realities of building a practice that sustains you. Weekly live mentoring. Monthly Deep Dives in ceremony. A rhythm that moves in tides. Graduates are certified as Rising Mother Doulas.
DISCERNMENT IS THE SKILL THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING
Anyone can learn what to believe about birth. My students learn how to think, how to listen, and how to recognize what is really happening in front of them. That’s what families remember about their doula.
FREE LIVE SAMHAIN CEREMONY
SATURDAY 31 OCTOBER
The very first thing we do together in the training is a ceremony around the witch wound.
This Samhain, I’m inviting you to a taste of it, free.
In the late 1480s, a German inquisitor named Heinrich Kramer published one of history’s most notorious witch-hunting manuals: the Malleus Maleficarum, or Hammer of Witches. He singled out one woman as particularly dangerous: the midwife.
Women entrusted with bringing children into the world were accused of serving the devil. You’ve probably heard the story that followed: thousands of midwives burned at the stake for what they knew.
Except the historical records tell a different story.
Midwives weren’t systematically hunted as witches in the way we’ve come to believe. Many remained respected and trusted members of their communities.
So why does almost everyone know the story of the burned midwife, but so few know the history of how birth actually changed hands?
And what happens when we mistake a powerful story for historical truth?
Reclaiming women’s power means being willing to question even the stories we wish were true.
I AM VANESSA
For 15 years, I’ve worked with women, babies, and families through some of life’s most profound transitions, bringing together my clinical background in pediatric osteopathy, birth work, and ancestral practice that was passed down from my shamanic mother.
I’ve spent years in clinical environments, alongside midwives, and in the intimate spaces where women become mothers. And I’ve seen what happens when we treat the physical, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of birth as though they have nothing to do with each other. My work refuses that separation. I believe in clinical knowledge. I believe in ancestral wisdom. And I believe both deserve rigorous questions.
That’s why I founded Rising Mother: to educate women and doulas who can understand the physiology, navigate the systems, recognize the complexity, and remain deeply human in the middle of it all.
I don’t believe we honor women by inventing a more beautiful history for them. I believe we honor them by taking their actual lives seriously.
This Samhain, I’d love to share that work with you.
Some stories deserve to be questioned.
And women deserve to be remembered.
On 31 October, while the world dresses up as witches, we’ll gather to look beyond the costume.
To meet the history.
To honor the women.
And to consider what we want to carry forward.
There’s a place in the circle for you.