Teaching Labor Support Workshops Across Florida

Labor Support Skills Workshop

Christie and Amy, Buddha Belly owners, have been participating in an exciting project and we wanted to share what it is all about. 

In 2017, Christie was invited as a doula consultant and trainer, to join a special project with the Florida Perinatal Quality Collaborative, housed within the University of South Florida. 

The purpose of the Florida Perinatal Quality Collaborative is to improve Florida’s maternal and infant health outcomes through the delivery of high quality, evidence-based perinatal care. Their mission is achieved through numerous projects that address quality improvement issues in participating hospitals throughout Florida.

One such project is: PROVIDE (Promoting Primary Vaginal Deliveries) Initiative, to improve maternal and newborn outcomes by application of evidence based care and ultimately reduce primary c-sections for low risk mothers.  As part of this initiative, one midwife and one doula travel the state to provide regional workshops focused on teaching Labor Support Skills. These workshops take place in participating hospitals and the attendees are hospital nurses and care providers.

Along with the other trainers, Christie assisted compiling and finalizing the curriculum for these workshops. The project was launched in January 2018 with the first workshop at Bayfront Baby Place hospital in St. Petersburg. In mid 2018 Amy also joined the team as a doula consultant and trainer and they have both been teaching workshops every since!

"Workshops have been held at 15 hospitals to date, training nearly 500 nurses over the course of a year and a half... Workshops provide labor and birth providers with many strategies to improve the patient experience and health outcomes.  Feedback on these trainings has been overwhelmingly positive, with nurses enthusiastically telling us they were so glad they attended." - From an article published by the College of Public Health

Topics that are covered include: 

  • Techniques, tools and positions that promote labor progress at all stages
  • The physiology and hormones of labor and how they affect labor progress
  • The evidence for comfort techniques
  • Hands-on practice with a variety of coping strategies, including promotion of optimal fetal rotation and descent
  • Shared decision making/communication best practices for the stages of labor
  • Patient and family education tips and resources related to each stage

We’ve received fantastic feedback and heard many success stories resulting from these workshops. Nurses are excited about the new tools and techniques they’ve learned and how they will integrate the information in their hospitals to improve the quality of labor support for their patients. 

We are honored to be a part of this important project that is making a difference in the quality of care for Florida families.  

About Christie Collbran

Christie believes in helping women recognize their own inner wisdom, strength and power. Having served as President of the Tampa Bay Birth Network for six years and with ten years serving families as a birth doula, she has a reputation for leadership, dedication and compassion. A childbirth educator, certified lactation counselor as well as a certified doula, she makes a point of ensuring mothers and their partners understand all their birthing options and what to expect on their journey.> keep reading