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FOR BIRTHERSBOOKS + TOOLS

SPEAKING + TRAINING

Birth & Doula Conference Speaker Dr. Vaive

Give your audience something to keep thinking about after they leave the room.

Dr. V speaks about the places where birth gets especially human: psychology, sexuality, decision-making, relationships, nervous systems, identity, power, and what happens when what we know meets the person actually standing in front of us.

Keynotes  •  Conference Sessions  •  Workshops  •  Professional Training

Invite Dr. V to Speak

SPEAKING TOPICS

Talks that go beyond the usual birth conference conversation.

Dr. V brings psychology, research, lived experience, and practical application into conversations birth workers are already having—and some we aren't having nearly enough.

01

Birth Psychology

Birth doesn't happen to a body in isolation. Expectations, memory, relationships, fear, identity, previous experiences, and meaning all come into the room.

02

Birth + the Microbiome

Emerging microbiome science—and what it asks us to reconsider about birth, feeding, contact, intervention, and the environments surrounding new families.

03

Sexuality + Birth

Birth is reproductive. Birth is embodied. Sexuality, intimacy, consent, identity, and previous experiences don't disappear when someone becomes pregnant.

04

Decision-Making + Autonomy

What does meaningful support look like when choices become complicated, plans change, time feels short, and everyone in the room has an opinion?

05

The Birthworker in the Room

Birth workers are never neutral. Personal histories, nervous systems, values, reactions, and witnessed experiences enter the room too. Supporting someone else also requires noticing what is happening inside ourselves.

Have a conference theme already? Dr. V can develop a keynote, breakout session, or training around the questions your audience is wrestling with.

Talk About Your Event

SEE DR. V SPEAK

You are never neutral.

A birthworker doesn't have to say a word to affect a room.

In this excerpt from Birth Compass: Decision Point, Dr. V explores co-regulation, the nervous system, and what it means to recognize the influence we carry into birth spaces.

Explore past speaking, podcasts + media →

FEATURED WORKSHOP

Birth Compass: Decision Point

What happens when birth suddenly becomes a decision?

A provider recommends an induction. Someone changes their mind about an epidural. An exam is suggested. A cesarean enters the conversation.

These moments can move quickly. The birther may be processing information, emotion, expectations, and everyone else's reactions at the same time.

Birth Compass: Decision Point gives birth workers a practical process for slowing the moment down, staying grounded, and supporting someone through a decision without taking the decision over.

Participants don't just hear about the process. They practice it through realistic birth scenarios, rotating through the roles of birther, supporter, and observer before coming back together to talk about what happened.

Best for: Doula conferences, birthworker organizations, professional education, and student groups.

Bring Decision Point to Your Event
COMING SOON NEW CONFERENCE PHOTOS
Consent Is Sweet workshop Consent Is Sweet ice cream sundae activity

FEATURED WORKSHOP

Consent Is Sweet

Consent education people actually remember.

Consent can become abstract quickly. Consent Is Sweet makes it tangible.

Using the familiar experience of building an ice cream sundae, participants explore asking, listening, preferences, boundaries, changing your mind, receiving a no, and what an enthusiastic yes actually looks like.

The workshop can be adapted for children, teens, and young adults and has been used in youth leadership programming at Michigan State University.

Best for: Schools, camps, colleges, youth programs, and community organizations.

Bring Consent Is Sweet to Your Organization

MORE TOPICS + TRAINING

There is more to talk about.

Period Preparation

Age-appropriate education that prepares young people for menstruation as an embodied experience—not simply a hygiene problem to manage.

Birth + the Microbiome

Available as a conference presentation or professional education session exploring microbiome science in pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and infant feeding.

Sexuality, Intimacy + Birth

Conversations and professional education around sexuality, reproductive experiences, intimacy, consent, and the sexual dimensions of birth.

Custom Professional Training

Have a question your organization keeps running into? Training can be developed around the needs of your audience rather than forcing the conversation into an existing workshop.

Ask About Training

WHY DR. V

A perspective that crosses disciplines.

Dr. Vaive's work sits at the intersection of psychology, birth, sexuality, education, advocacy, and embodied experience.

With a PhD in Psychology focused on childbirth psychology, an MSW, postgraduate training in sex therapy and sexual health education, and extensive training across birth support and embodied practices, Dr. V approaches familiar subjects from more than one direction.

It changes the questions Dr. V asks.

What is happening underneath this interaction?

What does this feel like from the other person's side?

What are we assuming?

What is the body doing while we're busy thinking?

What have we accepted as inevitable that might deserve another look?

The goal isn't more information to memorize.
It's something new to notice.

EXPERIENCE

Speaking, teaching + conversations.

Dr. V has presented for conferences, universities, professional organizations, community programs, podcasts, media outlets, and birth education events.

Conferences Universities Professional Organizations Media + Podcasts Community Programs
NEW CONFERENCE PHOTOS COMING SOON
NEW CONFERENCE PHOTOS COMING SOON
NEW CONFERENCE PHOTOS COMING SOON

OTHER WAYS TO WORK TOGETHER

Not planning a conference?

Professional Training

Custom education for organizations working in birth, reproductive and sexual health, education, and client care.

Podcast + Media

Conversations about childbirth psychology, birth culture, sexuality, reproductive health, decision-making, and related topics.

Book Events + Facilitated Conversations

Author events, panels, community conversations, and educational programs.

Start a Conversation

SPEAKING + TRAINING INQUIRY

Bring Dr. V to your event.

Planning a conference, training, workshop, or media conversation? Tell Dr. V what you're working on. You don't need to have the perfect session title figured out before reaching out.

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