Cathy Daub
Founder | Trainer | Mentor
It has been Cathy Daub’s wish “from the heart” that inspired BirthWorks!
Herstory
The vision for BirthWorks began with Cathy Daub teaching childbirth education in 1981 in NJ, USA. At that time, pregnant women were being pressured into cesarean births, but Cathy deeply believed women should birth in the least risky way. She knew women have the knowledge within them of how to give birth, so over time BirthWorks Philosophy and her early classes grew ~ from small seeds into much more!
BirthWorks unique, experiential approach is part passion and part culmination of Cathy’s varied perspectives and talents. Cathy’s travels to 55 countries around the world, give her such a unique perspective on women of other cultures and their beliefs about birth. In addition, Cathy is a mother to two (a daughter and a son). She is also a Physical Therapist focused on pediatrics and special needs children, certified in pelvic work and as a Maya Abdominal Massage therapist, trained in techniques of myofascial release, and a teacher of human values. She teaches piano and is a music composer who created an album about birth: Believe!
In addition to being a long-time BirthWorks Childbirth Educator and Doula, she has trained and mentored hundreds of childbirth educators and doulas and birth workers in the USA and overseas. She co-authored BirthWorks Childbirth Educator Manual and the Doulas of Love book. The heart of her work culminated in her book Birthing In The Spirit, a human-values approach to childbirth. She also has contributed to magazines like Midwifery Today and Pathways to Wellness. She continues to mentor, teach and train trainers now 40 years later, both nationally and internationally.
Cathy’s passion for birth still grows, especially given primal health research – showing that what babies experience from conception to one year impacts their health and wellness into adulthood. Cathy is constantly finding new ways to understand and share both the holistic, spiritual view of birth and the evidence-based science that proves it. She believes birth is an integration of mind, body, and spirit and dedicates her life to helping women and children reach their full human potential.
History
In the 1980s, pregnant women in the US were told “once a cesarean, always a cesarean,” even though research showed a VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean) was usually safer! Cathy deeply believed women should birth in the least risky way, so she developed childbirth education classes to help them have faith that knowledge of how to birth is already within them. In 1982, BirthWorks joined The International Cesarean Awareness Network (ICAN). Cathy served as Chairperson of their Education Committee, developing BirthWorks into a pilot program and later into a Certification Program, with the first workshop being held in 1988. Since then, BirthWorks has certified ChildBirth Educators and offered Childbirth Education for parents in varied locations in the US and several countries.
Over time, varied people felt inspired to become birth workers and further share and live BirthWorks Philosophy. In 1994, with the support of our Mentors and others wanting to be on the Board of Directors, BirthWorks International became its own incorporated non-profit, non-governmental organization, gaining support from varied leaders in the childbirth field who joined our Board of Advisors. In 2000, Cathy Daub and Liz O’Shea co-founded BirthWorks International Doula Certification Training program, which now certifies both Birth Doulas and Postpartum Doulas internationally, in-person and online.
Today, BirthWorks is an internationally-recognized childbirth education and doula certification organization. Since 2020, we offer all BirthWorks Training Workshops online (as well as in-person), created BirthWorks BirthPrep (an online childbirth labor intensive for parents), and in affiliation with Kangaroula offer advanced doula training for those wanting the best full-term and premie-care practices.
BirthWorks International is supported by a distinguished network of those in the childbirth field, including our global Board of Advisors. We often hear appreciation — from both parents and our varied BirthWorks professionals – Childbirth Educators CCE(BWI), Birth Doulas CBD(BWI), and Postpartum Doulas (PPD(BWI) — sometimes years later, about the deeply impactful and positive value this work has for their births, families and lives.
Deeply rooted in both a values-based holistic approach and evidence-based scientific research, BirthWorks International recognizes the very vital need for premium childbirth education and doula support that helps women experience, trust and have faith in the wisdom within. The heart-inspired work of BirthWorks is summarized in Cathy’s books: Doulas of Love: A Guidebook for Doulas and Expectant Parents and Birthing in the Spirit!
Birthing in the Spirit
Music and lyrics to Birth is Ancient from CD Believe by Cathy Daub
Cathy’s Book
Learn about the BirthWorks Approach
I wrote this book so birthing women can connect with spirit — so their births become peak experiences, serving as a source of strength during parenting years. I hope it teaches women not to be afraid of their own power in labor.
The book also shares ways that anyone supporting pregnant women to be sensitive to the physiological and spiritual needs of a birthing mother. (It is for fathers/partners as well as caregivers, doctors, midwives, nurses, and doulas.)
It is important for each woman and those with them on this journey to realize the importance of her happiness during pregnancy, labor, and birth, so she produces hormones of joy. I hope hormones of joy become the first experience of each growing baby! We know babies’ experience of this means more ease with eating and sleeping, but also that it assures babies’ nervous system and brain development in the most ideal ways!
Reading this, hopefully you feel a strong connection and shared bond with all women giving birth — for birth is cross-cultural, timeless, and ancient. Birth is also an experience greater than ourselves with immense transforming power, if we take the step of looking more deeply inside. After all, isn’t that what a woman needs to do when in labor?
I hope you feel touched at a deep level with inspiration to make changes in your pregnancy, birth, parenting and life for the better.
From the heart! –Cathy Daub
