This is our reading selection list for our SBD training. 

This is our public example, intended to give the future student doula an opportunity to consider the breadth of literature resources there can be for us as we learn and serve.  Our expanded list will be available to you as an enrolled student.

Two book reviews are required as part of SBD doula certification.  You can visit our Student Checklist for information about writing and submitting these reports.

Please select your two books from our list:

Professional Bereavement Support

• Companioning at a Time of Perinatal Loss: a Guide for Nurses, Physicians, Social Workers {This title is strongly recommended for every SBD student, and, is a required, pre-selected title for any SBD student seeking to earn nursing contact hours.}
• Perinatal Loss: A Handbook for Working with Women and Their Families {great for UK doulas}
• Ghost Belly: a memoir and interpretation of the challenges and support of birthing location options and outcomes
• Dancing with the Midwives: a memoir of art and grief
• This Common Secret: a Journey of an Abortion Doctor
• Early Flight: Healing Hope for Parents of the Stillborn, Miscarried or Aborted
• Being a Wounded Healer
• Adoption & Loss: The Hidden Grief, 21st Century

Professional Labor Support

• Special Women — Paulina “Polly” Perez
• The Doula Book – Klaus, Klaus, Kennell
• The Disabled Woman’s Guide to Pregnancy & Birth – Judith Rogers
• Christ Centered Childbirth – Kelly Townsend
• Birthing From Within – Pam England
• Mothering the New Mother – Sally Placksin
• Red Medicine: Traditional Indigenous Rites of Birthing and Healing – Patrisia Gonzales
• Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering – Sarah Buckley, MD
• Brave Beautiful Birth, Trusting God in VBAC – Jaimie Schrock, SBD
• A Good Birth – Anne Lyerly
• Natural Hospital Birth – Cynthia Gabriel

Professional Postpartum Support 

• Building Your Nest
• The First 40 Days
• Mama’s Menu
• Dark Womb Redemption 2
• Heal Your Birth Story: Releasing the Unexpected

Professional Development
Balancing Personal & Professional / Connecting

• I Embrace Therapy Guided Journalbook for Doulas – Agathe C. Pierre-Louis Psy.D
• The Heart of Being Helpful: Empathy & Creation of Healing Presence – Peter R. Breggin MD
• You, Inc
• Digital Body Language – Erica Dhawan
• Successful Women Speak Differently – Valerie Burton
• Daring Greatly – Brene Brown

“The willingness to show up changes us, It makes us a little braver each time.” 

“If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can’t survive.”

Continuing Pregnancy

• A Gift of Time – Amy Kuebelbeck
• I Will Carry You – Angie Smith

Facing & Exploring Birthing Options in Bereavement

• Integrated Approaches to Infertility, IVF & Recurrent Miscarriage
• Walking the Labyrinth of My Heart

Older Children / Subsequent Children

• A Letter from Heaven—Steve Butler and We Do Remember You—Steve Butler
• Helping Children Grieve: When Someone They Love Dies—Theresa Huntley

Spouse / Marriage (birth)

• Becoming Us – Elly Taylor (pre-pregnancy, all birth outcomes)

Spouse / Marriage (bereavement)

• Grieve Like a Man – Jonathan Fann
• Swallowed by a Snake: the Gift of the Masculine Side of Grief – Thomas Golden

Personal Growth after Loss

• Surviving the Unimaginable – Pascale Vermont, PhD
• In a Heartbeat: a Journey of Hope and Healing for Those Who Have Lost a Baby—Dawn Waltman
• Unspeakable Losses: Healing from Miscarriage, Abortion, and Other Pregnancy Loss—Kim Kluger-Bell
• About What Was Lost: anthology including miscarriage and elective abortion
• The Rallying Cry: TFMR
• Naming the Child – Jenny Schroedel
• After Finley—Mel Scott
• Grief is a Journey – Dr. Doka

Serving A Niche 

Stillbirthday focuses on the paradigm changes needed surrounding serving families well in the spaces of birth and bereavement.  Stillbirthday does not teach as a focal point some of the other areas of serving families well, though we recognize and honor that there are many, because each person is a mosaic of universal and individual aspects, and reaching into those aspects may be the best way to serve the whole person.  The book review component of your certification can become an incredibly meaningful way of integrating a niche that you are interested in or already passionate about. While even these titles can appropriately be placed in a more general category above, we’ve drawn these out to give you a more clear idea that the passions and values you bring into your training absolutely can be woven into your role as a doula.  Here is only one small sampling of offerings for your consideration.

Economics, Poverty, Family:

•   The Future of the Family

Race and Childbirth:

• Killing the Black Body

Identity:

• Far From the Tree
• Where’s the Mom?
• When Survivors Give Birth

If you have a title you prefer that isn’t on this list, simply ask Heidi Faith if it can be applied for one of your two book reviews.  It may also appear on the expanded list that enrolled students have access to.  The selection above has simply been pointed out by SBD students who’ve been through the program already. Here is our growing public list of titles as well.

Please note, that the title “Companioning at a Time of Perinatal Loss” is a requirement for those seeking nursing contact hours, and then you can select one more title to complete your two book reviews.

STILLBIRTHDAY BOOKLETS

These are not required whatsoever, but you may enjoy utilizing them as helpful resources.

Supporting Birth & Bereavement as a Doula

Previously in PDF version, the new actual book version has a better name and even more content!

• the most frequently visited pages from stillbirthday: types of loss, birth methods, birth plans, farewell celebrations – everything in the Immediate Decisions book for newly bereaved families
• history of doula
• very, very basic, foundational support as a doula, expanded in the training
• self care
• foundation for the SBD workshops
• If you are not interested in committing to our full online certification, this is at least a minimal alternative.

We don’t offer tracking for international orders to keep the costs to a reasonable minimum.

Immediate Decisions Booklet

These little booklets, about 200 pages, contain the most frequently visited pages of stillbirthday:

• **Types of Loss (“what’s happening” and how it’s explained compassionately)
• **Birth Methods (“what my provider told me we need to do” and how it’s explained personally)
• **Birth Plans (“how can I still have options from within the birth method my provider and I think is best?”) I’m planning on having a stack of them outside of The M0M Center for parents to pick up immediately if they’re experiencing an impending loss, but it might be something for ultrasound technicians, emergency rooms, maternity units or crisis pregnancy centers to have on hand.
• Includes commentary and helpful healing activity and quotes pages.
• Available in Spanish or German: Click here to order

We also have helpful hospital brochures
you can print and freely distribute from this page about our doulas.

Other titles will also be mentioned and recommended in the training.