About the Association of Ontario Doulas
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Our Mission: The Association of Ontario Doulas advances the doula profession through community engagement, education and advocacy.
We educate the public, health care community and third-party insurers as to the benefits of doula presence for new and expectant families. We also provide professional guidance to our doula members.
The Association of Ontario Doulas was incorporated as a not-for-profit in November 2000 under the name Doula C.A.R.E. as a doula registry and doula support organization. We began using the name Association of Ontario Doulas in 2015 to better reflect the organization’s changing nature.
“We’re here to support Ontario’s birth workers through the AOD’s values of accessibility, inclusivity and integrity”
Volunteer Board of Directors
The AOD is guided by a dedicated Volunteer Board of Directors who bring their experience, passion, and leadership to strengthen our mission.
Kait Pacheco
(2025 – 2027 term)
Bianca Sprague
(2024-2026 term)
Joefin Peters
(2025-2027 term)
Brittany Goodfellow
(2024-2026 term)
Strategic Priorities of the Association of Ontario Doulas
Doula-Centred, Community-Driven
Our Mission: The Association of Ontario Doulas advances the doula profession through community engagement, education and advocacy.
The Strategic Priorities of the AOD works to promote professional perinatal support persons through the alignment of its primary initiatives and set strategic priorities.
We recognize and honour that labour and postpartum doulas may also be proficient as:
- Fertility doulas
-
Perinatal and
childbirth educators - Infant or gestational loss and termination support persons
- Lactation support workers
- End of Life doulas
- Prenatal Yoga Teachers
Accessibility – The AOD strives to remove barriers to the advancement and growth of doula professionals and the community.
Inclusivity – The AOD strives to ensure equity and sustainability in the perinatal profession by tending to the needs of our members of marginalized communities.
Integrity- The AOD strives to uphold the profession’s moral and ethical principles and values and encourages individuals to demonstrate ongoing growth.
- Advancing the profession
The AOD’s primary goal is to strategize, mobilize, and advocate for Ontario doulas.
We do so through continuing education. The AOD is proud to include continuing education opportunities for its members as a part of its updated strategic priorities.
Through AOD’s strategic priorities, we encourage our members to focus on expanding their inter-professional collaboration within the perinatal community, including mentorship and engagement at board and policy levels.
- Promoting the value of doula support to the general public
The AOD is passionate about the contribution that perinatal professionals make to the well-being of Ontarians.
We promote the value of perinatal support by promoting the profession through advertisements, speakers, social media, and public engagement.
- Strong Internal and External Relationships or Partnerships through Collaboration
The AOD works to collaborate with stakeholders in several ways:
- through formal and informal networking
- through the education and inclusion of diverse voices
- through educational opportunities that speak to our goals of collaboration, inclusion, and the advancement of perinatal professionals
The AOD aims to work closely with related practitioners, associations, and potential colleges to ensure that the advocacy and strategy for Ontario perinatal professionals are ongoing, collaborative, and inclusive.
The AOD advocates at systemic and governmental levels to ensure that perinatal professionals are recognized as key support for Ontarians.
- Providing education and support for professional doulas through strategic programming that is inclusive, diverse, and engaging
- Working to establish funding and access for professional doula support services (i.e. third party payers)
- Promoting doulas and their support to the general public, government, other health professions and provincial stakeholders, such as our colleagues at the Ontario Black Doula Society, the Ottawa Valley Doula Association, The Biidaaban Doula Collective, RESPCCT Study, other perinatal associations, collectives, or organizations related to gestational and infant well-being.
- Providing professional guidance to doulas through updates on industry related topics or developments via monthly newsletters, social media posts, and other formal means of communication.
- Mobilizing strong internal and external community relationships and partnerships.
Doula work is currently an unregulated profession in Ontario and at this point in time there are no current plans or umbrella network to move towards proclaiming regulation. A College of Doulas would work to regulate professional doulas and the AOD aims to build its current strategic priorities around, but not limited to, that one-day possibility.
The AOD’s primary goal is to strategize, mobilize, and advocate on the behalf of Ontario doulas and their clients.
Doulas are in a place to currently position themselves as advocates and influencers in Ontario. Clients can be helped by having consistent support throughout their experience, being supported in non-physical and physical ways, and by ensuring that informed consent and the clients prerogatives are being respected.
Doulas are also in a place to relieve the pressure currently being felt in many environments of the Ontario health care system. Doulas can work to rebuild a client-directed approach and to remove practices that do not represent current client experiences or expectations. By focusing on a client-directed approach to doula support, the client is given the opportunity to invite whom they wish to attend and support them in their experiences. This enhances the autonomy of both the client and of the professional doula for the betterment and well-being of Ontario.
Studies have shown that doulas help clients make informed choices, have better birth and chestfeeding outcomes, and alleviate the pressures on overdrawn institutional structures (Footnote studies). Doulas also ensure cultural humility, practices, and client preferences are foremost considered in the support of their clients as a whole.
Continuing education is an encouraged part of membership with the AOD. The AOD is proud to include continuing education opportunities for its members as a part of its updated strategic priorities. These educational experiences will provide the opportunity for a foundation of diverse speakers, recent research findings and long term practice considerations, in a variety of learning methods, from webinars to live in-person training. Annually, the AOD will host a half day-convention along with the Annual General Meeting.
Doulas are passionate about the contribution they make to the well-being of Ontario clients, and as part of the AOD’s strategic priorities our members will focus on expanding their inter-professional collaboration with other professions.
By educating and forming relationships with industry stakeholders and partners, and our client-directed consumer base, the AOD hopes to govern the respect and acceptance of doulas as authorities in the care and support of Ontario clients.
Doulas support the whole person and their chosen community. They do this by focusing on providing continuous support, informed decision making, and a client-directed approach.
AOD members work to collaborate with one another and mobilize in several ways:
– through formal and informal networking
– through regional networks established across the province
– through the education and inclusion of diverse voices
– through educational opportunities that speak to our goals of collaboration, inclusion, and the advancement of professional doulas
Our members come from a variety of learned and traditional backgrounds and have affiliations or experiences with many related modalities. The AOD aims to work closely with related practitioners, associations, and potential colleges to ensure that the advocacy and strategy for Ontario doulas is on-going, collaborative, and inclusive of a client-directed approach to provincial well-being and growth.
In 2024/2025 the AOD Strategic Priorities will focus on:
- Educate public and private stakeholders about the value of doulas.
- Update strategic priorities to represent the current climate and needs of professional doulas in Ontario;
- Advocate on behalf of its professional members and Ontario clients, with an emphasis on institutional access and client-directed choice as a human right;
- Continuing Education opportunities for members, which may be via webinars, guest-speakers, roundtables, and/or organized workshops;
- Ongoing monthly communication between the AOD Board and its membership. Updates will include, but are not limited to provincial policy regulations or changes, developments with industry stakeholders, budgetary spending for advancement of AOD members, and educational opportunities;
- Diversifying membership and governance to be representative of Ontario doulas from black, indigenous, LGBTQ2TSAI+, racialized and marginalized communities;
- Working to expand collaborative partnerships to uplift the voice and inclusion of doulas from many backgrounds and experience levels (i.e. certified, certifying, indigenous, mentored). *At this point in time the AOD, as a professional association will not be including self-trained doulas as a part of their membership criteria without previous mentoring or references.
Note:
The annual strategic plan is shared with members at the Annual General Meeting (October of each year).
Association of Ontario Doulas –
Guidelines for Professional Practice (Scope of Practice)
The Association of Ontario Doulas (AOD) represents professional and traditionally trained doulas in the province of Ontario.
In order to become and maintain membership with the AOD, the doula must be certified or working towards certification by a professional training organization who aligns with the Ethical Conduct Guidelines, Equity and Inclusion Policy, and Strategic Priorities of the AOD and meets the outlined educational expectations, and/or trained/mentored in the traditional ways of birth support (with references and proof of practical mentoring). * Self-trained doulas are not accepted at this point in time.
No person or training organization with a current insurance claim or filed grievance related to professional conduct may apply or maintain membership with the AOD.
Services & Support Guidelines: An AOD doula provides client-directed support through the values of inclusivity, equanimity, autonomy, ethics, and advocacy. Their support may take the form of emotional, physical, or evidence-based informational support, however it is not limited to those experiences.
Such support may include, but is not limited to:
All periods of client-directed support:
- Offering assistance in obtaining up-to-date, evidence-based information to encourage self advocacy and informed decision making;
- Offering referrals when a situation arises that requires additional attention and support that falls outside restricted clinical/support practices as listed in the Regulated Health Professions Act (1991) or health professions acts (i.e., Medicine Act, 1991);
- Modelling and encouraging effective communication strategies with the clients direction and other invited participants involved in their care;
- Advocating on the behalf of the client or their immediate support community at the request of the client;
- Assistance in formulating realistic preferences that match the client’s values and needs;
- Nonpharmacologic pain management suggestions, referring client to a medical provider when a client feels a diagnosis or prescription may be required;
- Supporting initial chestfeeding support and encouragement of skin to skin
- Offering continuity of care. A specific backup should be found for all clients so the labouring or postpartum person and/or their immediate support community are never left unsupported. This includes paid, pro bono and charitable work.
AOD Limits to Practice:
- Perform restricted medical procedures, diagnose, or prescribe anything under the Regulated Health Professions Act (1991) or health professions acts (i.e., Medicine Act, 1991). Such actions include, but are not limited to: performing vaginal exams, reading and interpreting medical tests and diagnosis, performing clinically defined manoeuvres, diagnosing disease, prescribing medications, performing surgeries or other surgically related tasks, dressing or caring for surgical or vaginal wounds. If you are outside the Province of Ontario please refer to your provincial or territorial Health Act for guidance.
- Act on behalf of medical care when a client has chosen the direction of a licensed medical practitioner.
- A doula will not attend births that are intentionally unassisted (births that do not have a trained or qualified medical professional in attendance).
- The AOD recognizes that in some communities access to care is not always possible and traditional birth attendants may support clients. All AOD doulas recognize that they are non-medical support (restricted clinical practitioners) *see AOD document on client-directed support and practice guidelines (to be created)*
- Make decisions and/or speak for their clients
- Use personal opinion or conjecture to influence clients choices or experiences
Where the doula has additional training in other modalities or practices they should refer to that profession and their practicing guidelines, and determine if it is appropriate to combine the roles. Members should clearly inform clients of such training, the limits of their ability to offer knowledge and/or practice in this area, and that any additional services offered is separate from their services as a doula. The doula is encouraged to clearly define this situation to any healthcare provider they encounter in order to avoid confusion regarding the doula’s role and the client-directed support they have been invited to attend.
Definitions:
COUNSEL
To advise or recommend, as an act or course. Advice given especially as a result of consultation. A policy or plan of action or behaviour.
OPINION
A notion or conviction founded on probable evidence; belief stronger than impression, less strong than positive knowledge. A view, judgment, or appraisal formed in the mind about a particular matter.
PRESCRIBE
To specify with authority. To direct, as in a remedy to be used by a patient; as, the doctor prescribed a medication. To write or to give medical directions; to indicate remedies.
ADVOCACY/FACILITATION
The doula advocates for the client primarily through informing and empowering them. This is best described as support, information, and mediation or negotiation. The doula does not make decisions for the client.
REFERRALS For clients
REFERRALS For clients’ needs beyond the scope of the doulas training or comfort, referrals are made to appropriate resources.
ALL Members of the AOD will be asked to sign an electronic copy of the Guidelines for Professional Practice, Ethical Conduct Guidelines, Equity & Inclusion statement, and other related governing documents that sets the precedent for professional expectation as an AOD representative. By signing, the member is building trust and confidence in establishing professional standards for doulas and the practice of client-directed support in Ontario.
Position Statements
Equity & Inclusion Statement
The Association of Ontario Doulas recognizes and celebrates the diversity of the doulas, childbirth educators, board of directors and families that we work with.
We are dedicated to providing inclusive support without prejudice or discrimination based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender identity, gender expression, age, sexual orientation, geographic location, ability, class or any other individual characteristic.
As an organization, we are committed to the ongoing learning and transformation required to incorporate the needs and feedback of our community.
Committees & Collaborations
At this point in time, the AOD does not have any regional representatives.
We welcome those who are interested in sitting on a subcommittee with one of our Directors.
Seeking committee members for:
- Equity, Diversity, Inclusion Committee
- Nominations Committee
- Membership and Professional Development
- External Relations and 3rd party reimbursement
- Grievance committee
- Marketing and AGM Event Planning
- Governance and Certification Review
- Communications (Social Media, Newsletters)
If you are interested in serving on a committee with the AOD,
please click the button below to complete and submit the form.
Experiences Shared by Our Doula Community
“My AOD membership has been a valuable investment for my business. The website listing generates regular referrals, and those clients more than cover my membership and insurance costs. I’ve also been a webinar facilitator and participant in previous AOD hosted webinars, which are great learning opportunities for the doula community.”
“Being listed with the Ontario Association of Doulas has been genuinely helpful in my practice. I’ve had several clients reach out specifically because they found my profile through the AOD directory, particularly those who were looking for added reassurance around professionalism, legitimacy, and comfort in their decision-making. Having that platform available has supported those clients in feeling more confident as they choose the right doula for their family. “