Issue link: http://tcnj.uberflip.com/i/1521631
24 The College of New Jersey Magazine One by one, the 15 students paired up on soft mats in a room in Trenton Hall on a Saturday morning in early February. When the instructor gave them the signal, some of the students lay down on their backs while the others stood at the ready. At the instructor's next direction, the classmates who were standing crouched down to help their partners stretch. Together, they identified areas of discomfort, and the crouching students suggested how their peers could better position their bodies to relieve tension. The students who were lying down relaxed their upper body muscles and slowly stretched their legs with care. Though the moves helped the students test their flexibility, this wasn't a weekend yoga class. Instead, they were simulating pregnancy — and the sometimes lifesaving comfort measures that ease labor pain. The students were also making history in New Jersey: They were completing a weekend intensive program as part of a new TCNJ semester-long training course to become certified doulas, advocates hired to provide support to pregnant and postpartum women. It is the first program in the state that offers college credit for doula training. The activity was just one way the students practiced providing critical physical and emotional guidance to pregnant people, skills that have made doulas indispensable for those most vulnerable during pregnancy. Led by the weekend's instructor, Nikia Lawson, a certified birth doula and trainer with DONA International, the students acted out improv skits for each stage of labor. If Lawson told them the scenario was "early labor," students practiced walking their clients through breathing and relaxation techniques. When the next scenario was "client in active labor," students demonstrated how they'd help a client change positions, roll on a large rubber birthing ball, or breathe through contractions. Researchers have found that there are fewer birth complications when mothers are matched with doulas who have this kind of hands-on training. "Those two days were transformative because we learned about everything from conception to late-stage labor and the needs of families that recently delivered," says Cielo Salgado-Cowan '25, who enrolled in the course as an elementary special education and women's, gender, and sexuality studies double major. Public health professor Natasha Patterson took the doula certification course alongside her students.