PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATION · NEXT COHORT JANUARY 2027
Prenatal yoga teacher training for doulas, birth workers, yoga teachers, and perinatal therapists
Aligning the Mind and Body for Birth™
Nervous-system-informed certification. Learn to teach the six-week Nona® Prenatal Yoga & Support curriculum: movement, mindfulness, childbirth education, and group support, taught as one whole. No yoga credential required.
The training at a glance
Prenatal yoga, taught as birth preparation
This training is for doulas, birth workers, childbirth educators, yoga teachers, and perinatal therapists who want to teach deeper mind-body birth education, build a steady, repeatable offering, and develop relationships with the families they serve.
Here, yoga functions primarily as a felt metaphor for birth and a gentle way to build resilience and ease discomfort. You do not need prior yoga experience. The sequence is already developed to be safe and gentle, and the training includes the movement instruction to teach the Birth Coherence™ Prenatal Yoga Sequence with confidence.
The class you will learn to teach is the emotional and embodied companion to childbirth preparation. Childbirth education teaches families what happens in birth; this class prepares the body and the mind for it, working with fear, trust, identity, and the postpartum shift through the nervous system, week after week, so that when labor begins the practice is already familiar.
THE ORIGINAL NONA® MODELS
Coping is a mind-body skill. You will learn to teach it.
You will learn a way of being with discomfort, and how to teach it.
You already know comfort measures, mindset, and positioning. This training goes deeper, adding mind-body coping skills built on how the nervous system responds to stress and safety: frameworks you can carry into every part of your practice, including the birth room.
01
Rhythm, Receive, Rest™
A contraction-cycle coping model. Rhythm supports mobilization during the contraction, receiving support allows co-regulation as it resolves, and rest supports recovery before the next one begins.
02
Recognize, Respond, Regulate™
A state-reading model. Recognize the nervous system state, respond with appropriate support, and regulate toward safety, connection, and agency.
03
Language of Safety™
A language model for labor and birth education, built on the idea that words are safety cues the nervous system reads.
This training is for you if…
You're a yoga teacher
You already teach yoga or prenatal yoga and want to deepen your understanding of birth physiology, neuroscience, and how to hold space for the full perinatal experience.
You're a doula or birth worker
You support people through labor and want to integrate community-building group support and embodied practice into what you offer, grounded in a clear, science-informed framework.
You're a midwife or perinatal provider
You work in clinical or community birth settings and want to bring movement, breath, group support, and nervous system tools into your practice in a grounded, evidence-based way.
You're a therapist or counselor
You work with people navigating pregnancy, birth, or early parenthood and want a group option with somatic and movement-based tools alongside the one-on-one work you already do.
Learn to facilitate the 6-week Nona® Prenatal Yoga & Support curriculum
A support-based prenatal yoga experience that weaves together movement, mindfulness, discussion, childbirth education, and nervous system awareness, for professionals who want to offer something more integrated than a poses-only or education-only class. Slow is the skill: you will learn to pace a class so the pace itself signals safety to the nervous system.
Movement
Prenatal yoga that supports comfort and stability as pregnancy changes the body, plus resilience-building movement and coping.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness and deep relaxation practices that can become coping tools in labor and early parenting.
Group support
Intimate discussions around fear, identity, relationships, and trust, and childbirth education through an embodied, nervous system-informed lens.
What parents carry into birth
The practices you teach are uncomplicated on purpose, simple enough to recall during labor, and effective because parents have practiced them enough times that they feel familiar when labor comes. Parents arrive at birth with a somatic vocabulary for coping and a community they built alongside you, six weeks of practice behind them.
What the research suggests
Systematic reviews and controlled trials suggest prenatal yoga may reduce anxiety and depressive symptoms in pregnancy and support pain coping and childbirth self-efficacy. This training builds on that foundation and pairs it with structured childbirth education and nervous system science.
What's in the curriculum
Six core areas.
Foundations of the Nona® framework
Birth Coherence™, physiologic birth, evidence-based teaching, trauma-informed care, anti-oppression, and reproductive justice.
Nervous system science and regulation
Neuroception, co-regulation, autonomic states, resilience, and practical regulation skills.
Embodied practices for coping
Prenatal yoga, somatic principles, mindfulness, deep relaxation, Language of Safety™, Rhythm, Receive, Rest™, Recognize, Respond, Regulate™, and the Birth Coherence™ yoga sequence.
Reproductive justice
History of obstetrics and midwifery, understanding bias, trauma-informed and anti-oppression frameworks, maternal mortality, social determinants of health, and health disparities.
Childbirth education and perinatal health
Phases and stages of labor, pain and pain coping, anatomy and physiology of pregnancy and birth, common complications, postpartum recovery, and perinatal mental health.
Facilitation and teaching practice
Creating safety and structure, guiding discussion, holding complexity, teaching sensitive themes, and applying the work through practicum.
What parents say about the class you'll learn to teach
“This class is so amazing! It really helped me purposefully think through some of my feelings and expectations in regards to labor, delivery, and motherhood.”
AMBER O'KEEFE“This is the only place I have full permission to just be pregnant. It is a glorious feeling.”
KRISTIN VETETO“I absolutely loved everything about this class. I am even more confident in myself and body now. You truly opened my mind.”
AUDREY STEWARTTaught by someone who has stood in every role
ERICA KROLL, LPC, E-RYT 200, RPYT
Licensed perinatal therapist · Childbirth educator · Prenatal yoga teacher-trainer · Retired doula
Since 2000 I have worked as a doula, childbirth educator, and prenatal yoga instructor, walking alongside families through the joys and difficulties of the childbearing year. In 2012 I became a licensed professional counselor specializing in perinatal mental health and retired from attending births.
Because I have stood in all of these roles, I bring an integrative perspective to this training. It is the integration of everything I have learned across them. I hope it gives you what I spent years looking for: a framework that holds up in the birth room and in the classroom, and a class you are proud to teach.
One training instead of piecing together three
Many professionals want to offer a prenatal class that is more supportive and more embodied than a poses-only or education-only model, but can't assemble several trainings and credentials to make it happen. Nona® Prenatal Yoga & Support was developed by a perinatal therapist with over 25 years of experience teaching mind-body birth education and group support, so the training gathers what you need in one place. Graduates leave with a free year of professional membership, including mentoring, community support, curriculum licensing, and ongoing updates.
- 16-week hybrid training plus 4-day in-person practicum
- Complete 6-week parent curriculum, licensed to you
- One year of professional membership included
- Yoga Alliance CE eligible
Common questions
Do I need prior yoga experience or a yoga credential?
No. This training is designed for birth and perinatal professionals first. You will receive the yoga training you need to teach the curriculum confidently. Yoga teachers are also welcome, and foundational childbirth education is included.
Is this training online or in person?
Both, and it is taught in cohorts. The 16-week core training is online: the video modules are self-paced, with a weekly schedule to keep and weekly live check-in sessions. It concludes with a 4-day in-person teaching practicum in Columbia, Missouri, with limited accommodations included. Groups can also arrange to host Erica for the practicum in their own area.
What is the time commitment?
Approximately 2 to 4 hours per week plus practice time across the 16 weeks. The teaching practicum consists of full 6 to 8 hour days.
How is this different from an 85-hour RPYT program?
Yoga Alliance's 85-hour RPYT track trains existing yoga teachers to adapt yoga classes for pregnancy. This is a proprietary certification built for a different purpose: it prepares birth professionals, with or without a yoga background, to teach a six-week mind-body birth preparation curriculum in which yoga, childbirth education, nervous system regulation, and group support are taught as one whole.
If you are a certified yoga teacher, eligible hours count toward Yoga Alliance continuing education.
What is the difference between certification and professional membership?
Certification confirms you have completed the training and demonstrated competency. Professional membership is how the curriculum is licensed to you, and it allows you to teach under the Nona name, publicly identify as a Nona Prenatal Yoga Facilitator, and offer Nona-branded classes. Your enrollment includes one year of membership with the option to renew.
Will I learn to sequence prenatal yoga classes?
You will learn to guide the Birth Coherence™ yoga sequence, which is repeated with purposeful variation across the six-week parent curriculum. This training treats prenatal yoga as a metaphor for birth and a way of building nervous system resilience. Developing your own sequences will be covered in a future training.
When does the next cohort open?
Cohorts run once or twice per year, with the next beginning in January 2027. Join the waitlist to be notified when applications open and to receive early enrollment information.
NEXT COHORT · JANUARY 2027
If this is the kind of prenatal class you have been wanting to teach
Join the waitlist to hear when the next training opens.
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