INDIANA

DOULA

CONFERENCE

MEET the
2026 SPEAKERS

BREAKOUT SESSION SPEAKERS & PANELISTS

  • Sara is a certified postpartum doula, agency owner, and mother of 3 girls— including a set of twins! She holds a bachelor’s degree in child development and brings a blend of education, experience, and lived empathy to the families she serves.

    Her service to others centers on calm, evidence-based support that helps parents feel confident, rested, and deeply cared for during the postpartum transition. 

    As the owner of a growing postpartum doula agency, she’s passionate about elevating postpartum care and creating a supportive community for both families and doulas!

Bridging the Gap of Matrescence from the Doula Perspective — Moving Mothers Beyond Survival

  • Mila (She/Her) is a Community Birth Doula, Certified Community Outreach Perinatal Educator, Certified Lactation Specialist, Certified Child Passenger Safety Technician, Certified Community Health Worker, and CPR/ First Aid certified. 

    She supports families throughout their prenatal and immediate postpartum periods in St. Joseph, Elkhart, and LaPorte Counties. 

    Mila also currently works full-time as a Birth Doula/ Community Health Worker for Beacon Health Systems community group, Beacon Community Impact, and the Family Journey Program. Mila has worked as a private birth doula, with a contracted/grant funded community-based doula program, and now as a Resident Birth Doula for Memorial and Elkhart General Hospitals. 

The Importance of Birth Doulas Working within the System

  • Tina Booze is a licensed financial advisor with over 25 years of experience helping individuals navigate life transitions, long-term planning, and decisions rooted in personal values. Throughout her career, Tina has worked with people during some of their most vulnerable and meaningful moments and experiences that closely mirror the deep, relational work doulas do every day.

    Tina’s passion is helping caregivers recognize their own worth and understand that caring for others does not require self-sacrifice or burnout. She believes sustainability, boundaries, and self-investment are essential acts of care, not indulgences. Her work focuses on helping people gain clarity, confidence, and alignment between their purpose and their personal well-being.

Caring for Others, Preparing for Yourself

  • Laura is a licensed speech-language pathologist who earned her undergraduate degree from Butler University in 2009 and her graduate degree from Arizona State University in 2011.

    She has been with Jacob’s Ladder since 2012, providing services in the outpatient clinic, school settings, and early intervention programs.

    Jacob’s Ladder Pediatric Rehabilitation is a nonprofit organization located in Chesterton, Indiana, providing comprehensive therapy services and supplemental care for children in need. Its mission is to partner with families, communities, and healthcare providers to help children reach their full potential.

    Laura has pursued extensive continuing education in feeding and swallowing, augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), tracheostomy and ventilator care, childhood apraxia of speech, tethered oral tissues, Kinesio taping, cultural considerations, and speech and language development. In 2022, she became a Certified Lactation Consultant.

    Since 2024, she has been an active participant in Jacob’s Ladder’s Staying On Track program, which offers free developmental screenings for children ages 0–3 in daycares throughout Northwest Indiana. Laura is also a member of Jacob’s Ladder’s speaker bureau and has presented at both the local and state levels.

Early Milestone Acquisition and Reflex Integration

  • Joslyn D. Cunningham is the Founder and CEO of Blissful Birthing Doula Services LLC in Indianapolis, IN. Born and raised on the far east side of Indianapolis, she has dedicated her career to ensuring families and communities are heard, supported, and celebrated throughout their reproductive journeys. Since beginning her birth work in 2020, Joslyn has combined her lived experience with professional expertise to empower birthing families, co-create solutions with community members, and collaborate with doulas, midwives, providers, and local leaders to advance equitable care.

    Her work extends beyond birth support into community education, speaking engagements, and program development that centers dignity, equity, and collective voices. Joslyn is the Treasurer of the Indiana Breastfeeding Coalition and an alumna of the inaugural Perinatal Mental Health Alliance for People of Color Fellowship, where her capstone research focused on paternal perinatal mental health and its ties to child development. As an aspiring anthropologist, she is deeply committed to ensuring research uplifts community voices and that lived experience guides both scholarship and practice.

Centering Paternal Perinatal Mental Health:
Expanding the Future of Doula Care

  • Lisa Daugherty began practicing yoga in the mid-’90s in Tucson, Arizona. After moving to Indianapolis, she started teaching yoga classes in neighborhood community spaces in 2002. She joined the Cityoga teaching team in 2007.

    Since then, she has continued to teach extensively throughout central Indiana. She currently offers weekly classes and Somatics workshops and is the co-lead trainer for Prenatal and Postpartum yoga teacher training and Somatics and Trauma Informed yoga teacher training, and has offered wisdom and teachings for the 200-hour yoga teacher training, all at Cityoga.

    She guides local and international yoga retreats with her husband, who is also a yoga instructor. Her teaching style is eclectic, unique, creative, and rooted in embodiment and a deep reverence for nature. 

    She is also the Executive Director of Heartland Mindfulness Collective, a local non-profit organization that works to reduce barriers and increase accessibility for systemically marginalized communities to receive yoga, meditation, and wellness services, while providing right livelihood to local yoga instructors and service providers. 

    She is a mother to 4 young adult daughters and has been advocating for midwifery care and empowered childbirth for 30 years as a doula and childbirth educator. She is also a ceremonialist and a threshold guardian who uses ritual and music and storytelling to bring about a vision of planetary and personal healing and wholeness. 

Hands, Voice, and Connection:
Practical and Spiritual Supports for Pregnancy and Postpartum

  • Leah Johnson (she/her) is a proud doula, boy mom, and wife rooted in Indianapolis, IN by way of West Virginia. Though birthwork wasn’t part of her early plans, she now sees it as a calling—one she’s grateful to have embraced.

    As the owner of Our Little Helper, Leah provides doula care that blends traditional practices with modern, evidence-based guidance. With tenderness and intention, she walks alongside families from birth through postpartum, ensuring they feel informed and held.

    Leah is also the co-founder of the Indy Melanated Birthworker Collective, a community-driven organization dedicated to nurturing and sustaining the birthworkers who serve Indianapolis families, while also creating accessible education and support for the families themselves. Collaboration has been pivotal in her journey, reminding her that shared wisdom and community care strengthen every family she supports.

Your Birthworker Ecosystem: Implementing Collaborative Mindsets over Competition in Your Practice

  • Susan is the heart behind Woven Womb.

    She is a Birth Doula and Certified Homeopathic Practitioner, called to support women through the sacred cycles of life — fertility, pregnancy, birth, postpartum, menopause, and beyond. Her work is anchored in a simple truth: womanhood is not meant to be walked alone.

    Woven Womb is more than a practice to her — it is a sanctuary. A space where women can feel seen, nurtured, and supported through care that weaves together mind, body, and spirit.

    Her calling was shaped by her own journey. After years of infertility, pregnancy loss, and IVF to conceive her first two children, she eventually found healing and conceived naturally. That path led her to a home birth — her Redemptive birth — an experience that transformed her and deepened her mission to hold space for other women navigating their own transitions. Because she has walked many paths of womanhood myself, she shows up for her clients not only with training and skill, but with lived understanding, reverence, and compassion.

    Through holistic health support, whole-body healing, and heartfelt doula care, she helps women reconnect to their innate strength, honor their cultural traditions, and find balance in every season of life. Whether you’re preparing to conceive, planning your birth, settling into the rhythm of the fourth trimester, or stepping into the wise woman stage of menopause, she walks beside you with wholehearted care.

    Her mission is clear: to create safe, sacred spaces where women feel empowered, supported, and deeply connected — to themselves, their families, and their ancestral wisdom.

Rooted Across Borders: Culturally-Grounded Prenatal & Postpartum Support for Immigrant Families

  • Brianna Puckett is a healthcare operations and growth executive who improves outcomes and lowers total cost of care for Medicaid and high‐risk populations. She has led multi‐state contact‐center operations, governed complex outreach contracts, and advanced provider performance through data‐driven scorecards and equity‐focused engagement strategies.

    At Wayspring, Brianna directed a 30+ FTE team and helped deliver a 14% reduction in ER utilization across multiple states. She designed maternal‐health engagement playbooks that achieved a 15% reduction in NICU stays and a 2% increase in first‐trimester prenatal engagement for Medicaid‐eligible and BIPOC cohorts. She also governed a ~$2M health outreach contract, standardizing SOPs/QA and establishing audit‐ready KPI frameworks that scaled across geographies.

    In her current role as Account Director, Health Outreach at Engaging Solutions, Brianna translates operational performance into competitive wins and renewals. She develops performance dossiers, risk‐mitigation plans, and SLA models that enable partners and clients to compete effectively under evolving procurement environments, including race‐neutral policy shifts. Her approach centers on measurable service quality, cycle‐time improvement, and prudent cost‐to‐serve economics.

    Previously, Brianna built partnership networks with high retention rates and accelerated growth—securing 26 new strategic partnerships in one month and sustaining 85% retention across a 48‐partner portfolio. She has established budget governance, KPI dashboards, and compliance protocols that align stakeholder objectives with delivery realities.

    Brianna holds an M.S. in Special Education from Capella University and a B.S. in Psychology from Indiana State University. She is recognized for disciplined execution, strong contract governance, and practical collaboration with providers, payers, and community partners.

From Stories to Statistics: Empowering Birth Workers Through Data

  • Lauren Rush is a Certified Babywearing Educator and Certified Babywearing Consultant dedicated to helping caregivers feel confident, supported, and empowered in their Babywearing journey.

    She provides personalized, hands-on guidance tailored to each family’s needs, focusing on safety, proper positioning, comfort, and choosing the right carriers for everyday life.

    Lauren is passionate about sharing the many benefits of Babywearing including bonding, convenience, and emotional connection - and believes it can be an accessible, supportive tool for all caregivers.

    Through her education and community work, she helps families strengthen their relationships, move through daily routines with ease, and discover the joy that comes from keeping their little ones close.

Hands, Voice, and Connection:
Practical and Spiritual Supports for Pregnancy and Postpartum

  • Dr. ReAnna Untener is a pediatric and prenatal chiropractor specializing in neurodevelopment, sensory regulation, and nervous-system based care for expectant mothers, infants, and growing families.

    After her own late diagnosis of a neurodevelopmental disorder, she experienced firsthand the life-changing impact of chiropractic and somatic work she discovered her passion to support families through physiologic birth and empowered postpartum transitions.

    Dr. ReAnna integrates chiropractic care, cranial work, and Somatic Respiratory Integration to help parents and babies heal from birth stress, feeding challenges, and developmental delays. She teaches workshops for birthworkers, midwives, and parents on trauma-informed nervous system regulation, newborn stress patterns, and collaborative care. She is an associate of a family wellness practice in Indiana.

    Dr. Untener is committed to accessible, respectful, and nervous-system safe care for all.

The Birthworker Nervous System:
Regulate the Provider, Regulate the Birth Space

  • Takiesha Smith CD(DONA) is a nationally recognized maternal health advocate whose work centers on culturally responsive, trauma-informed care for birthing people. As the founder of A Caring Doula and Neuro Spicy Birth, and she is the Indiana State Ambassador for Count the Kicks, TaKiesha blends clinical expertise with strategic advocacy to empower families and birth workers alike.

    Her presentations are known for their warmth, clarity, and depth—inviting reflection while equipping professionals with practical tools to serve neurodivergent, marginalized, and Black birthing communities. Takiesha’s voice is grounded in lived experience, community care, and a commitment to ethical, inclusive birthwork.

Rooted in Legacy:
Honoring History, and Advancing Birth Equity in Indiana

  • Janeva Shaw-Mims, MSML, is a social worker and HR leader by training, but her heart has always belonged to doula work and the movement for reproductive justice.

    Her advocacy is shaped by community and by witnessing the inequities faced by birthing people — especially Black mothers — as they move through systems never built with them in mind.

    Drawing from her background, Janeva works to highlight how policy and storytelling intersect. She is motivated by the desire to equip doulas to recognize systemic harm, amplify community voices, and use their presence to empower the individuals and families they serve.

    Janeva’s work centers the belief that doulas are not only care providers, but essential advocates for change

The Politics of Care:
Policy, Power, and Advocacy in Birth Work