Gwendolyn Bright

Bright Birthing founder Gwen Bright is currently a student midwife completing an apprenticeship with the midwives at Riverhaven Community Birth Center.

Poet, artist, and homeschooling mama to Matilde and Gideon, Gwen is a California native full-spectrum doula trained at Natural Resources and by the Bay Area Doula Project in San Francisco. She has a strong commitment to reproductive justice and an insatiable need to plug into storytelling of all kinds. She is the founder of Bright Birthing and has attended many births in and out of hospital since 2010.

Along with a BA in literature and religion and work toward a Masters in traditional Chinese medicine, Gwen's additional studies have included Jane Austin's Prenatal Yoga Teacher training; Essentials of Prenatal Massage with Dominique Clothiaux; Trauma to Triumph with Nurture in Richmond; and Penny Simkin's When Survivors Give Birth. In 2018 Gwen completed postpartum doula training with Cynthia Jordan-Fisher and Dianne Bearinger of Month 10 and Nearby Baby. Most recently Gwen has completed coursework through San Francisco Zen Center in chronic pain and chronic illness, and studied with Yolonda Coles Jones in a program called Design Your Family’s Education Reality.

Gwen hosts a weekly homeschool field day, a monthly New Moon Circle with herbalist and ceremonialist Liz Henke, and her most recent land art Spiral Walk can be seen at Panorama Natural Burial in Earlysville.