You're Invited to CAPPA's Virtual Conference 2021
Every year, CAPPA holds an annual conference to help our members stay up to date on the latest information for perinatal professionals.
Join us for sessions from amazing speakers on topics related to birth, postpartum, breastfeeding, family relationships, infant communication, and so much more!
Registration will open June 1, 2021
Sponsored By Cord Blood Registry® (CBR®)
Cord Blood Registry® (CBR®) is the world’s largest and most experienced newborn stem cell company. Since 1992, families have entrusted CBR to store more than 900,000 cord blood and cord tissue samples. As part of their commitment to advancing the clinical applications of newborn stem cells, CBR has helped over 600 families use their cord blood samples for current and investigational treatments.
Exhibitors
Speakers & Sessions
Click the speaker name to see more information about their session.
Abby Bordner
CLD, CPD, CLE, CAPPA FacultyAbby has worked for over 25 years in a career in reproductive health and supporting families by promoting early attachment and bonding. She is a labor and postpartum doula, lactation educator, family development specialist, and works at a nonprofit supporting early childhood development and education in the prenatal to 5-year-old age range. Her work includes training and educating parents, caregivers, professionals, yoga teachers, and doulas. She lives in New Mexico, where she enjoys cooking, hiking, and spending time with her family.
Anna Rodney
CPD, CLD, CCCE, CLE, NCS, LCCE, MaEdAnna Rodney, Owner of Chicago Family Doulas and Arizona Doulas has been a labor and postpartum doula and childbirth educator for over a decade. She started her business as a solo practice and was able to grow Chicago Family Doulas into a large and very successful agency. After giving up her career as a Special Education teacher she knew having a successful doula business was imperative. She attributes her success to commitment to learning and growing, to the many business and marketing classes that she completed, to learning social media and to her deep love for creating connections and caring for other. She is caring, compassionate, knowledgeable and a community resource for all things birth, baby and business. She enjoys sharing her love for this career with others and is incredibly grateful to be a Labor and Postpartum Doula trainer and a Certified Childbirth Educator trainer for CAPPA.
Michaela Arriaza
Owner of Baby Time RD, CCCE, CPD, CLE®Michaela has worked for over 15 years supporting families by promoting breastfeeding and early attachment and bonding through babywearing. She is a postpartum doula, lactation educator, childbirth educator, new parent educator, baby led sleep specialist, CAPPA Latinamerica faculty and host of Babytime podcast. She started her own business in 2006 supporting early childhood development and education in the prenatal to 5- year-old range. Her work includes educating new families, caregivers and professionals, training postpartum doulas in Latin America. She lives in the Dominican Republic with her family, she enjoys babies, and seeing families blossom, cooking and spending her free time in the mountains with her family and friends.
Michaela ha trabajado durante más de 15 años apoyando a las familias promoviendo la lactancia materna, el apego temprano y la vinculación a través del porteo. Ella es una doula de posparto, educadora de lactancia, educadora de preparación al parto, educadora de nuevos padres, especialista en sueño respetuoso, docente de CAPPA Latinoamérica y presentadora del podcast Babytime. Comenzó su propio negocio en 2006 apoyando el desarrollo y la educación de la primera infancia desde el período prenatal hasta los 5 años de edad. Su trabajo incluye la educación de nuevas familias, cuidadores y profesionales, la formación de doulas posparto en América Latina. Vive en República Dominicana con su familia, disfruta de los bebés y de ver florecer a las familias, cocinar, compartir con sus amigos y familiares y pasar su tiempo libre en las montañas.
Dr. Kristy Christopher-Holloway
LPC, NCC, BCTMH, CPCS, ACS, PMH-CDr. Christopher-Holloway's research focuses on the mental health help-seeking experiences of religious or spiritual African American women diagnosed with infertility, as well as the psycho-emotional impact of infertility. Additionally, she focuses on counselor trans-cultural competence, the intersection of religion and spirituality and mental health, and the impact of generational trauma and the 'Strong Black Woman' syndrome in Black women.
Dr. Christopher-Holloway's background includes working in private practice, in-home counseling, outpatient, and residential treatment. While she has worked with children, adolescents, and adults providing counseling services, her passion and current clinical focus involves working with women experiencing infertility and birth trauma, perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (postpartum depression, anxiety, etc), and pregnancy and infant loss (also commonly referred to as perinatal loss or reproductive loss). She is also certified in perinatal mental health (PMH-C).
Laurel Wilson
BSc, IBCLC, RLC, CLE, CLD, CCCE, PPPILaurel Wilson has twenty-nine years of experience working with families in the childbearing year and perinatal professional and travels the world (when not experiencing a pandemic) speaking about the importance of human milk and attachment. She is co-author of best-selling books, The Greatest Pregnancy Ever: The Keys to the MotherBaby Bond and The Attachment Pregnancy: The Ultimate Guide to Bonding with Your Baby, original Editor of the CAPPA Lactation Educator Manual, and contributing author to Round the Circle: Doulas Talk About Themselves. Laurel is a board-certified as a lactation consultant, childbirth educator, labor doula, lactation educator, Prenatal ParentingTM Instructor, and Pre and Postpartum fitness educator. She served as the CAPPA Executive Director of Lactation Programs for 16 years. She served on the Board of Directors for the United States Breastfeeding Committee from 2016-2019. Her current service roles include acting as a Senior Advisor for CAPPA and being on the Advisory Board for InJoy Health and Kindred Media. She also works as the Education Manager for GOLD Learning. Laurel has been joyfully married to her husband for 30 years and has two amazing sons, whose difficult births led her on a path towards helping emerging families create positive experiences. She believes that the journey towards and into parenthood is a life-changing rite of passage that should be deeply honored and celebrated.
It is FINALLY live. My TedX Talk, Human Milk: The Food That Helped Evolve Humanity. #TEDXCOS Please watch, share, and enjoy! http://motherjourney.com/tedx.html
Michelle Stern
CPDT-KA, Pooch ParentingMichelle is a certified professional dog trainer (CPDT-KA), dog behavior consultant, mom, and former classroom teacher. With over 16 years of teaching experience, Michelle loves both the human and canine members of dog families, which shows in her warm and supportive demeanor with clients. She specializes in working with families who are expecting babies and those who already have children and dogs. Learn more about Michelle and her services at: www.PoochParenting.net and @PoochParenting on FB/IG. And don't miss her podcast for parents with dogs called Pooch Parenting.
Nekisha Killings
MPH IBCLCNekisha Killings MPH IBCLC is an equity strategist and maternal and child health advocate who speaks, teaches, and facilitates on topics related to equity and dismantling bias. She acts as a Director of Equity, Inclusion and Belonging and consults organizations on creating and implementing strategies to better support marginalized communities. Coined the Aha! Moment Maven, Nekisha works to wow audiences with new realizations that will impact their approach to care. Nekisha is on a mission to #normalizebrownbreasts in health education and marketing, thereby better equipping providers to accurately diagnose and treat people of color. Nekisha‘s work is rooted in a compassion and candor that could only have been cultivated in years of supporting new parents through their journeys during the first days of parenthood. To eager audiences, she extends her own brand of wisdom, wit, and eureka moments to shift the way they approach life and work.
Dr. Sayida Peprah
PsyDDr. Sayida Peprah is both a licensed clinical psychologist and trained birth doula. She specializes in multicultural psychology, trauma, suicide prevention and maternal mental health. Dr. Sayida has a multifaceted career as a psychologist having worked in community-based, in-home, psychiatric hospital, correctional and private practice settings. She is also a trainer and consultant on topics of cultural humility, implicit bias and trauma as they impact mental and maternal health. Dr. Sayida is the founder of the non-profit organization Diversity Uplifts, Inc.
Dr. Sayida’s work in maternal health include serving as a doula trainer/mentor, maternal mental health and cultural competency consultant for perinatal health programs in Southern California (Frontline Doulas, Sankofa Birthworkers Collective). Dr. Sayida is also an active member of the Black Women Birthing Justice Collective and a Collaborator with the Black Mamas Matter Alliance, promoting research, education and community-based services to positively transform birthing experiences of black families. Dr. Sayida has served and continues to serve on advisory committees to improve maternal health including the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative (Maternal Suicide Review Committee 2018-2019 & Maternal Mortality Review Committee 2020- Present), Perinatal Equity Initiative Committees of San Bernardino and Riverside County (2019- Present), and others aimed at identifying key risks and opportunities for quality improvement and prevention around disparities.
Dr. Sayida is dedicated to contributing her expertise to uplift the community and improve the effectiveness of health care and social support services.
Sonali Shivlani
CCCE, CLE, CPFE, CLD, CNPESonali Shivlani is a CAPPA Certified Professional and Trainer. She is the Executive Director of CAPPA India and also trains for the Pregnancy Fitness Educator Program. She has been working with families since 2004 and has worked with more than 40000 parents through her programs and workshops. She is the author of Prenatal Fitness, Super Moms Recipes and Parenting Mantras. She founded her online pregnancy coaching platform in 2013 which offers complete E Learning solutions for pregnancy and post partum.
Trillitye Paullin
Ph.DI am a Molecular Biologist, Army Veteran, and mother to two beautiful daughters who had severe infant food sensitivities and reactions to proteins transferred from my diet to my breast milk. After processing the painful fact that I could hurt my children through breastfeeding, I started researching how to produce breast milk they could properly digest. I discovered that many parents experience the same troubling situation. I wanted to create a place for parents to find answers to their questions about infant food sensitivities and empower them to continue their breastfeeding journey. This is how Free to Feed was born. We are starting this mission by first creating an at-home test strip that will allow mothers to analyze their breast milk for allergens.
Jen McLellan
CBEJen McLellan is a published author, founder of Plus Size Birth, and host of the Plus Mommy Podcast. She helps people navigate the world of plus size pregnancy, shares tips for embracing your body, and laughs her way through the adventures of parenthood. Her work has been featured in major publications such as The New York Times, Glamour, Today’s Parent, Huffington Post, and International Doula. As a public speaker, Jen has spoken at numerous events including presenting at the National Institutes of Health. Jen is also a certified childbirth educator, wife, and mother to a charismatic ten-year-old.
Frequently Asked Questions
Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, we decided to change our in-person conference to a virtual one! We are aware that amazing work is being done to flatten the curve and develop reliable vaccines, but we decided that a virtual conference was safer and healthier for everyone. We have our hopes set on an in-person conference in Niagara Falls, NY in 2022!
All sessions will have CAPPA Contact Hours, which are always accepted for recertification with CAPPA. We're working on getting our sessions approved for Nursing CEUs and L-CERPs!
General and Optional Sessions will be pre-recorded and released the week of September 24th, 2021. You can watch them throughout the duration of the event multiple times! They will also stay up for re-watch throughout the month of October!
While this conference is a virtual event, we didn’t want our attendees to lose the experience of interacting with the speakers. We will live stream Q&As with each speaker from October 1st - October 3rd. These will be recorded and uploaded for later viewing, so don't worry if you miss the stream.
Conference Policies
Please help CAPPA maintain a safe, fun, and professional environment by reading and familiarizing yourself with our Conference policies before registering. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the conference, please let us know! Thank you!
There is a required $5.00 convenience fee to register for CAPPA Members. This fee includes access to the event app and a virtual "seat" at all the conference General Sessions.
Speakers/times may change without notice. There are no refunds for Optional Sessions, conference materials/merchandise, Social Event tickets, or lunches. No transferring registration to another person. No swapping sessions.
When registering for CAPPA events, trainings, and activities you are consenting to be video-graphed and/or photographed. CAPPA does not assume liability for adverse reactions to foods consumed, or items one may come into contact with while eating at any CAPPA Event, Training, or Activity you may attend whether inside or outside of the CAPPA planned events and activities.
Interested in becoming a Virtual Exhibitor?
We're interested in having you! There are plenty of opportunities to expand your reach and engage with the doulas and educators working with families from communities all around the world. Our virtual conference is attended by members from the USA, Canada, Latin America, Israel, and India!