09/05/2025
What's the Difference in Doula Family Childbirth Education Class Series?
Carol Wachniak
Carol Wachniak
I specialize in working with women, expecting mothers, and birth professionals so together we can build locally strong, faith-driven, supportive communities while improving maternal and infant outcomes.
May 9, 2025
Welcome to the Doula Family Childbirth Class
Hello and welcome to the Doula Family Childbirth Education class series. This is Lesson 1, and we're so glad you’re here. My name is Carol Wachniak, and I am Doula Family LLC's owner, author, and educator. As a legacy family business, we pride ourselves on the rich history we bring to the world of childbirth education and doula services. We are deeply committed to supporting families through the miraculous journey of childbirth, and we are thrilled to have you join us.
Our Legacy and Community Impact
Since 1980, Doula Family has been a three-generational midwifery and doula family legacy business. Our impact is profound, having supported over 4,000 families and delivered over 1,200 babies. For 20 years, we hosted an u***d mothers' ministry in our home and have built the largest LinkedIn birthing community with over 7,800 professional members globally. Our community and network extend well beyond family as we engage with multiple birth workers worldwide. Supporting Doula and Midwifery Educational programs, from providing midwifery supplies to 250 midwives in the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji, to the Classical Midwifery Conference in Crete in September 2025
Quality Childbirth Education
We believe that quality faith-based education in childbirth is essential. Our classes are meticulously designed to inspire and encourage you to become skilled in what we consider God's design of childbirth. We emphasized ensuring you can be an advocate and an informed consumer, as well as aiming for a safe and healthy experience for both mom and baby.
Meet the Doula Family
This is the Doula family: six of my daughters, all of whom have grown up surrounded by births due to the nature of our work. It's truly a family affair—Lori Beth Geils, my eldest, was the midwife in the practice. Together, we have managed and supported countless births, not just professionally, but within our own family experiences.
A Tradition of Support and Professionalism
Our educators and doulas are not only professionally trained in Birth Emergency Skills Training, CPR, and NRP, but are driven by a genuine calling to teach. They bring life skill lessons derived from personal experience and continuous learning. While our offerings provide educational information, we would like to encourage you to conduct your research and maintain open communication with healthcare professionals to become informed consumers.
BLOCKQUOTE
"Honor the miracle of life. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb." – Psalms 139:13-14
Understanding Your Birthing Choices
The Importance of Your Journey
The most vital part of our childbirth class series is your story and baby’s journey. We encourage you to contemplate your delivery options - will it be a hospital, birth center, or home birth? Reflect on your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, actions, and desired outcomes.
Choosing Your Birth Environment
Are you planning or reacting to your birthing environment? Our program empowers you to approach this with calmness, support, and sacredness. Birth is not just a physical event; it is deeply wrapped in emotional and spiritual layers.
Yearnings and Communication Styles
Our Childbirth Education and Doula Certification provides the only program resources from expert Bill Stierle, a dynamic and innovative thought leader who has developed a complete integration of Emotional Intelligence and Thinking Styles Technology. Clients benefit from his services, including personal, behavioral, relational, and family support. His expertise is in prevention and conflict resolution.
Identifying your top three out of 58 yearnings for this birth is crucial in our highly successful program. We want to encourage you to share these with your partner and birth professionals. Discover your personal yearnings, such as safety, security, love, and nurturance, that can profoundly impact the success of your birth experience.
Knowing your yearnings and communication styles can foster harmony, decrease dissatisfaction, and improve birth outcomes with less stress. Whether you are a bottom-line thinker, visionary, detail-oriented planner, or a team builder, integrating these communication preferences can create a balanced and supportive birthing environment.
Harmonizing Communication Preferences With The Birth Team
Bottom-line thinker: This style involves clear and direct communication, solving problems logically.
Visionary: Excels in crisis situations, welcoming change and risk-taking.
Planner: Dependable leaders focused on efficient and organized processes.
Team Builder: People-focused, encouraging cooperation and authenticity in group dynamics.
Understanding these communication styles increases understanding and effectiveness, and improves personal connection during the birthing experience. It ensures a harmonious environment where everyone’s needs are met.
Empathy in Relationships
Empathy is the cornerstone of relationships, particularly during childbirth. It involves connecting feelings and need words intuitively. Asking "What can I do to meet your need or yearning?" fosters deep empathy and understanding.
A Story of Nurture and Control
In one poignant client's birth story, a CEO found herself at odds with her birth experience. Despite her business control as usual from a board room, the delivery room was a completely different situation; she wanted the baby and her labor to take orders as her staff would. What she, the client, truly yearned for was nurturance and touch, yet her refusal of both —a realization that highlighted her dissatisfaction afterwards with the birth team members. She decided early on that her role as a CEO negated taking the time to understand her role in knowing what she really desired and the importance of understanding and accepting one's needs and yearnings to be vulnerable for some.
Relaxation and Visualization Exercise
Let's engage in a relaxation exercise. Find comfort, close your eyes, and imagine a serene beach where you can truly relax. Let the waves gently soothe and assure you, and allow yourself to breathe deeply, relaxing every part of your body from your toes to your head.
Feel the tranquility as you connect with the peace and the nurturing presence of God in your moment of meditation.
Nutritional Wisdom with Dr. Joel Wallach
Next week, we’ll delve into an interview we had about nutritional insights with Dr. Joel Wallach. Dr. Wallach's research has been published in more than 70 peer-reviewed reference articles in nutrition and pharmaceutical research. Discover the prevention of birth defects, the necessity of the 90 essential nutrients, 60 minerals, 16 vitamins, 12 amino acids, and three essential fatty acids critical for mothers and babies.
Watch the insightful interview and explore how vital nutrition can prevent pregnancy complications like preeclampsia. Understanding nutrition is crucial in achieving optimal health for you and your baby.
To prepare, track your dietary habits using our PDF handout. Reflect on what you eat and why. Utilize the Brewer Diet resource for preventative nutritional education.
Next week’s class is on nutrition. Understanding the value of living foods with bio-electrically charged foods with Life-Force Energy, Enzymes, raw food, and cooked food. To see how to receive the full report by Carol Wachniak, the recipient of the 2011 Award by Frank Avilia, Commissioner, City of Chicago.“Excellence in Food Be Thy Medicine,” The Report, “Jump Start Your Health at the Cellular Level, Foods with Bioelectrical Benefits, and Why Should We Eat Them? “
Continuing the Journey of Childbirth Education
Thank you for joining us today. We look forward to deepening your understanding in the coming Doula Family classes or Certifications. If you have questions, please get in touch with us at support@doulafamily.com or /text us at 224-623-2171.
Let this begin a powerful and enlightening journey for you, your baby, and your family.
By embarking on this educational journey with Doula Family, you're setting a foundation for a fulfilling childbirth experience. We’re excited to walk alongside you, providing the support, wisdom, and skills necessary for this transformative chapter in your life.
Carol Wachniak, Professional Doula, Trainer, Author, Speaker, Master Connector, Wife, Mother of eight, Grandmother to 26 Grandchildren
