Introducing the theme for 2027

Becoming: bringing change into focus

The theme is an invitation to explore change not simply as something that happens at particular moments in our lives, but change as a state we are always inhabiting.

Birth, for both birthing people and their families, and for those who walk alongside and support them, is an invitation to witness change in real time. It makes transformation visible to us in a way that change so often isn’t.

A woman, a birthing person, a family, is becoming through their unique and individual experience. Physically, emotionally, relationally and spiritually. At the centre of this transformation is not a system, an institution or a prescribed way of doing things, but the person, the family and their community. It is about their intuition, needs, desires, knowledge and innate capacity. 

We are asked to listen and to learn, to honour the wisdom of our nature and the unfolding process of birth, while holding the person experiencing that transformation at the centre. 

To remain open and curious, engaging with traditional knowledge, lived experience, new research and evolving perspectives, while remembering that these do not replace the knowledge held within the individual. Evidence can guide and inform us, but our care must always remain responsive to the unique person before us.

The theme also turns the mirror towards us as doulas and birthworkers. While there may be a moment when we first “become” a doula, but there is no point at which that becoming is complete. Every family we meet, people we work with, every birth or postpartum we witness, every story we hear and every perspective, tradition, piece of research or new understanding we encounter changes us.

Becoming: Bringing Change Into Focus is an opportunity for us, as individuals and practitioners, to reflect on where we place our focus and to be open to the constant possibilities offered to us. 

Our practice is continually being shaped and reshaped. We learn, unlearn, question, soften, deepen and find our own way into the doula we are becoming.