Brenda Lane's start in this field began nearly 17 years ago when she was certified as a childbirth educator with ICEA (International Childbirth Education Association) in 1993. She earned certification with Lamaze International in 2006. Brenda attended one of the first workshops to train birth doulas in 1993 with a newly-formed organization called Doulas of North America (DONA). Birth doulas are trained support persons who offer physical comfort, emotional and informational support to the laboring mother and her family. She has attended over 300 births in the last 13 years as a doula.After completing birth doula certification in 1995, Brenda began to recognize the need for more doulas in my region so I was approved as a doula trainer by DONA in early 2000. (Not long after that, Doulas of North America changed their name to DONA International. For more information about this premier doula organization, visit www.dona.org.)From 2004-2007, she served on DONA’s Board of Directors as Northeastern US Director and currently serve as the Director of Certification since October 2007. As Director of Certification, she oversees the entire certification process, certification committee members as well as identifying and implementing certification policies in an international organization of nearly 6,500 members.Since August 2006, Brenda has been the feature writer for a pregnancy and childbirth topic for the website www.suite101.com. She has published nearly 200 articles on this site and visits to my site have increased from 200 per month to approximately 40,000. Several of Brenda's articles have also appeared on About.com including Questions to Ask Your Caregiver about Twins' Births and The Good News about Postpartum Depression. She has written articles in professional journals including The International Doula, The International Journal of Childbirth Education and Childbirth Instructor magazine (no longer in publication) and local publications such as Chesapeake Family. Ilana T. Kirsch received her medical degree from the UCLA School of Medicine, and was formerly on the teaching faculty at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. She has delivered more than 2000 babies in her career as an obstetrician/gynecologist. Dr. Kirsch continues to enjoy caring for and supporting her patients throughout their pregnancies and childbirth in South Bend, Indiana, where she lives with her husband and two children. Carline Jean is a photojournalist who is senior staff photographer at the Sun Sentinel newspaper in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. She has a specialty sideline taking portraits of pregnant mothers. Carline says, "they walk in feeling tired and walk out seeing they're beautiful."
