Brittany Veal was encouraged to become a doula by a family she babysat for. That decision, combined with 20 years of experience in public and maternal health — led her to create the Love Your Training Academy, or LYTA.
LYTA spans 12 weeks and teaches its students how to become doulas in challenging medical situations like traumatic births, emergency C-sections, and within struggling hospitals.
With over 200 hours of training, instructional work and simulation labs, the fledgling program has a focus on comprehensive learning.
Last week, Veal celebrated the graduation of her first class.
"We talk about everything under the sun," Veal said. "We talk about anatomy, physiology, we talk about labor and comfort support, we talk about advocacy, we also talk about trauma informed care."
Doula services have been shown to produce positive outcomes in the birthing process. A 2024 article published by the American Public Health Association found that women who utilized doula care had a lowered risk of cesarean delivery and preterm birth.
"Most programs are a weekend long, you sit through 8 hours of virtual training, sometimes in person," Veal said. "You leave, and then as we all say, they kind of leave us to the wolves to kind of figure out things."
Veal said being an approved training provider with the National Doula Certification Board allowed her to teach students to thrive in healthcare systems. And she said building her program from the ground up allowed her to highlight overlooked topics.
Veal's students come from a wide range of backgrounds. One is a stay-at-home mother who had a traumatic birth experience, some are nursing students looking to bridge the gap between birth workers and medical staff, and others have supported family members through the birth process and simply found their calling.
Looking forward, Veal plans to host around four LYTA groups each year alongside various pre- and postnatal classes.
Veal said she thinks her program will grow, and anticipates that by 2028 she will be teaching outside of Indiana.
"When I graduated from college, I had a public health degree with a minor in women's studies and maternal health — so this has been something that I have been passionate about pretty much my entire adulthood," Veal said.
Contact WFYI reporting intern Chloe White at cwhite@wfyi.org
