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Hello!

My name is Tara Rice.

I am a certified childbirth educator and postpartum nutrition coach, and a trained and experienced birth and postpartum doula. I have been supporting pregnant and new families in the Finger Lakes region since 2005.

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About Me

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I have been a certified childbirth educator since 2005 and am currently certified by and serve on the board of directors of Informed Beginnings, a national organization and the first co-operative of childbirth educators. I am also a certified postpartum nutrition coach (Postpartum University), and a trained and experienced birth doula (Bradley Method) and postpartum doula (CAPPA). I started on the journey that led me here during my first pregnancy in 2001. The amazing, empowering, and extremely informative classes we took changed the way I looked at so many things, including nutrition, informed parenting, breastfeeding, and most of all, BIRTH. In addition to helping my husband and me understand that we had options and the right to make choices regarding our care, the biggest gifts my childbirth educator gave to me were a trust in the natural process of birth, confidence in my ability to birth my child, and eliminating my deep fear of childbirth. These are the gifts I strive to give the students in my classes.

I will never forget the day my husband looked at me, on our way out from our class one evening, and said to me, “People need to know this stuff! We should teach!” I knew he was right. And my life changed that day.

I went on to have three natural births, two midwife-attended at a hospital, and one midwife-attended at home.

After the birth of my second child, I pursued certification as a childbirth educator, began student teaching in the fall of 2005, and was fully certified in July of 2006. I never planned to become a doula, just to attend a birth here and there to keep myself current, but when my first students to give birth asked me to be there with them, and I got a taste of what it is like to be at a birth and to actually have the tools to be able to support the couple in labor and to help the mother to be able to tune into her own body and give birth with confidence and power, I knew I would be attending many more births. In 2020, following training, I also began assisting one of our local homebirth midwives. I am grateful for the opportunity I’ve been given to support families (including many repeat clients) as their doula or birth assistant at over 100 births.

I teach natural childbirth classes in Brighton in Monroe County, NY, and Canandaigua in Ontario County, NY. I am between Rochester and Syracuse, in the northern Finger Lakes region, also serving Monroe, Wayne, Yates, and Steuben counties. I support parents as a doula at home births and at all of the area hospitals including F.F. Thompson, Highland, Strong, and Rochester General.

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Certifications and Trainings
  • Childbirth Educator and Birth Doula - The Bradley Method: 2004

  • Childbirth Educator - Informed Beginnings: 2011 board member

  • Postpartum Doula - CAPPA: 2019

  • Postpartum Nutrition Coach - Postpartum University: 2020

  • Spinning Babies 2-Day Workshop: 2023

FLX DOULA

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If you are out and about and see the license plate FLXDOULA (Finger Lakes doula), that's me! If you have a chance, say hello. I'd love to meet you!

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