Childbirth and Lactation Education
Calm. Confident. Informed.
Whether this is your first baby or your fifth baby, Teri and Susan and the Harmony Doula Group team of instructors offer comprehensive childbirth education and lactation courses that are designed to help you know what to expect physically and emotionally from labor, to understand your choices and options, and to instill confidence and calm.
Looking for fun classes that create community over many weeks? We have Bradley, Lamaze, and ICEA classes in small group settings.
Prefer a fast-paced class that shares evidence-based information and best practices for the
outcome you desire, and knocks it out in a day? We've got you covered too, with small classes
in our office, in your home, or online.
The Harmony Doula Group
Experienced. Knowledgable. Unbiased Support.
Pregnant people, moms, dads, and families have so many options for where and how to give birth in the California Bay Area and Central Valley. Whether you are choosing homebirth, community birth, or hospital birth, the Harmony Doula Group has a combined 40 years of experience supporting births of all kinds, from low risk to high.
When you hire us, you get a team of experts working together and dedicated to helping you have your best pregnancy, birth, or postpartum experience.
We don't empower you. That power comes from within you. Our mission is to provide support and information, so you can make the choices you feel are right for you, respecting your individual birthing and parenting philosophies. No judgment, no agendas, just loving kindness and the consideration of you.
Harmony Doula Mentoring
Skilled. Committed. Advocacy.
Are you considering a career as a birth postpartum doula or are you already a practicing labor or postpartum support specialist? Are you passionate about supporting birthing and postpartum people in your community?
Our acclaimed high quality workshops in small group settings and one-on-one mentoring are dedicated to training doulas who are compassionate, culturally competent, and highly skilled at providing physical and emotional support and evidence-based information.
Our community-centered doula training workshop will prepare you to support the year surrounding birth
with confidence. Our advanced skills classes offer contact hours for continuing education and will help
you hone your skills, gain new ones, and serve your clients more effectively.
Trauma-informed Care
Are you attempting a VBAC? Do you have previous birth-related trauma? Or, are you a survivor of adverse childhood experiences (ACES)? Consider our private birth planning sessions to help you work out strategies, alleviate fears and anxieties, and help you feel ready to welcome your new baby.
Providing trauma-informed care and training others to do the same is a priority in our practice. If you are a perinatal professional, check our course list at Harmony Doula Mentoring for the next session, or to request one.
Why Hire a Doula?
A 2017 systematic Cochrane review showed that having continuous labor support makes one more likely to have a spontaneous vaginal birth and shorter labor, and less likely to have a cesarean delivery, instrument-assisted delivery (vacuum, forceps), regional pain medication, low APGAR scores, or a negative birth experience.In 2014 the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynocologists (ACOG) released a statement that the single most important thing someone can do to decrease their change of cesarean is to have "the continuous presence of support personnel, such as a doula".
The US national average for cesarean is 32%.
Teri's Client's Statistics, 2008-2020 (500 births)
- Vaginal delivery: 94%
- Cesarean delivery: 6%* (excluding planned cesareans)
- Instrument-assisted delivery: 3%
- Low 5-minute APGAR score: < 0.006%
Experience and Service Area
The Harmony Doula Group team have extensive experience that includes hospital birth, free-standing birth center birth, homebirth, multiples, slow induction, advanced maternal age, high risk pregnancies, VBAC, infertility and fertility challenges, surrogacy, adoption, teens, LGBTQ+ families, and more.
Teri's teaching radius for nurses, midwives, doulas and other perinatal professionals includes the entire San Francisco Bay Are and Central Valley, as well as online anywhere.
The Harmony Doula Group service area for birth and postpartum doula services is the East Bay,
Tri-Valley, Delta Valley and Central Valley area, including the cities of Berkeley, Oakland,
Fremont, Union City, San Leandro, Castro Valley, Walnut Creek, Danville, San Ramon, Dublin,
Pleasanton, Livermore, Brentwood, Antioch, Discovery Bay, Mountain House, Tracy, Lathrop, Manteca,
Modesto, Stockton, and all points in between.