The Body Literacy Symposium
January 24th - 25th 2026
A groundbreaking virtual conference dedicated to advancing menstrual and fertility health education
Day 1 - January 24, 2026
Katie E. Vidmar, MTS
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Katie E. Vidmar, MTS is a Body Literacy and Fertility Awareness Educator, and a passionate advocate for bringing holistic women’s health to underserved and under-resourced populations. She is the creator of Elevate, a training program for healthcare professionals designed to address health disparities through shallow-entry approaches to Body Literacy, Cycle Tracking, Fertility Awareness, and creating avenues toward root-cause healing for reproductive health problems in community health settings. She is the founder of The Body Literacy Project which empowers leaders in policy and education to ensure that every young man and woman in our country receives the knowledge of their bodies that is their birthright, and the creator of the body literacy video series Cycle Wise. She writes and speaks nationally, advocating for Body Literacy Education and Cycle-Informed Reproductive Healthcare for Women. She lives in Bismarck, ND with her husband and family.
01/24/26 - 12:00pm Eastern Time
Body Literacy for ALL: Removing Barriers
Are Body Literacy and Fertility Awareness only for middle-class-already-partnered- "Bohemian- Bourgeois" white women, or is it the case that this way of understanding and inhabiting our female bodies is EVERY woman's birthright, regardless of her race, socio-economic status, sexual preferences or spiritual orientation? Together, we'll discover why Body Literacy matters, how Body Literacy empowers women to better use their voices to advocate for themselves both in their intimate relationships as well as in their healthcare, and how we can remove barriers and increase access to Body Literacy and FAM in under-resourced community health care settings.
Krystal Drinkwater
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Krystal Drinkwater is an herbalist and auriculotherapist at Hoey Apothecary in Madison, Wisconsin. She studied western herbalism with Kathleen Wildwood at the Wildwood Institute before studying Chinese herbalism with Bob Linde in St. Petersburg, Florida.
01/24/26 - 1:00pm Eastern Time
Herbal Remedies for Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome
Topics discussed will include nutrition, the importance of healthy fascia and its role in pain management, and improving the quality of collagen and tissues.
Carmen Mojica
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Carmen Mojica (she/hers) is a Black Dominican woman born and raised in the Bronx. She is a certified professional midwife, educator, author, and social justice activist with a focus on birth justice. The focus of her work is on expanding access to reproductive health education for BIPOC individuals and reproductive health providers who identify as Black and Latinx, with special attention to first-generation individuals. Carmen is one of the co-creators of Bronx (Re)Birth and Progress Collective, a group of Black mothers, doulas, and organizers who aim to build alternate solutions outside of the system that protect and honor birthing people in the Bronx and their families. She is currently working in midwifery education and administration.
01/24/26 - 2:00pm Eastern Time
Not Until I’m Due: Body Literacy and the Perinatal Experience
Not Until I'm Due: Body Literacy and the Perinatal Experience is a deep share on the importance of body literacy and fertility awareness beyond preventing conception. In this lecture, the presenter will share personal experiences of becoming pregnant and giving birth and offer practical tips to be more aligned with the body during these transformational times.
Jamie Blumberg
and Erica Evans
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Jamie Murphy is a fertility awareness educator trained in the SymptoPro method of fertility awareness. Through her work she seeks to help menstruators gain the tools necessary to be knowledgeable and confident in navigating their fertility and menstrual health. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, she has approached the issue of COVID through a reproductive justice lens, seeking to understand how the virus affects menstruators, their well-being, and fertility. You can find her reading and writing about these topics as well as menstrual activism and anthropology.
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Erica Evans (she/her) is a COVID-Cautious Certified Fertility Awareness Educator, National Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach, ICF Associate Certified Coach, and ADAPT Certified Functional Health Coach. Living with hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, PMDD, and Dysautonomia, she understands the complexities of chronic illness and disability.
As founder of the Body Literacy Academy, Erica teaches the symptothermal fertility awareness method (FAM) for contraception, conception, and to help individuals track health patterns and identify symptoms. She is currently completing certifications as a Parental Brain Educator and Nurture Neuroscience Practitioner, expanding her ability to support people in their family-building journeys through evidence-based, relationship-centered approaches.
Erica believes that body literacy begins at birth—that attuning to our bodies, brains, and nervous systems from the earliest days of life builds the foundation for lifelong health and self-connection. She is dedicated to empowering people, including those with chronic conditions, to gain autonomy over their health and live with confidence.
COVID and the Reproductive System: Fertility Awareness in the midst of an ongoing pandemic
01/24/26 - 4:00pm Eastern Time
This presentation will discuss the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and outline the research on COVID-19’s effect on the menstrual cycle, reproductive hormones, pregnancy, and fetal health through the perspective of fertility awareness and with an emphasis on the importance of this topic as a reproductive justice issue.
Find a helpful reference sheet here.
Nicole
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Nicole is a menstrual health educator and the founder of Learn Body Literacy. Her mission is to empower individuals of all genders to understand and interpret the language of their bodies. By using fertility awareness as a guide and the menstrual cycle as a vital sign, she strives to create open pathways to empower self-mastery and collective solidarity. She creates resources to tangibly and immediately build reproductive freedom, through teaching the observation, charting, and interpretation of the fertility signs. Her platform is focused on accessible, inclusive education, so people can advocate for their own health, make informed decisions, and deepen the body‑mind‑spirit connection from menarche to menopause and beyond.
01/24/26 - 5:00pm Eastern Time
The Immuno-Menstrual Axis: Emerging Connections In Reproductive Health
This presentation will examine the emerging concept of the immuno-menstrual axis, which describes the communication between the immune system and the menstrual cycle. Across the cycle, hormonal fluctuations shape distinct immune environments within the reproductive tract. Menstruation itself is an immune-driven process, requiring the coordinated infiltration of immune cells to support normal function. Acute immune events, such as viral infection or stress result in changes in cycle presentation. Furthermore, chronic immune dysregulation is an active component in most prevalent reproductive health conditions like endometriosis, fibroids, and PCOS. Understanding the immuno-menstrual axis not only deepens our knowledge of reproductive physiology but also highlights the menstrual cycle as a meaningful indicator of systemic immune health.
Day 2 - January 25th, 2026
Kate Douglas
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Kate Douglas is a Fertility Awareness Educator passionate about body literacy at all stages of life. She is the founder of Earth Body, an online hub for classes in cycle health for individuals and holistic professionals. She currently serves as the head of the Research Committee at the Association of Fertility Awareness Professionals and brings a multidisciplinary background to this work with training in bodywork and horticulture in order to center the wholeness/nourishment of a client and their local ecosystem. For more, visit helloearthbody.com
01/25/26 - 12:00pm Eastern Time
Holistic Care for Fibroids
Join certified Fertility Awareness Educator Kate Douglas (who brings personal experience living with fibroids) for a lecture on holistic strategies to manage uterine fibroids and related symptoms.
Denise
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Denise is a clinical herbalist, cycle and sexual health educator. She is the owner of Eclipsic Herbs, where she teaches in-depth cycle tracking and personalized cycle health support. Denise's work focuses on bridging together body literacy and plant medicine. She believes that our cycle is not our shackle, it is our compass. That our cycles goes beyond just for reproduction, it's core to our health and wellbeing.Her formal education and experience is rooted in western herbalism and weaving in folk herbalism from Colombia. She is certified as a Fertility Awareness educator, with a focus on hormonal imbalances and pregnancy prevention.
Ovulation: The Key to Overall Health
01/25/26 - 1:00pm Eastern Time
Growing up, we are taught that our menstrual cycle is just about reproduction. But what if I told you that our overall health and well-being stems from our menstrual health. That our cycle impacts everything from bone density and cardiovascular health to mental and breast health. That’s why supporting our cycle isn’t as simple as taking a supplement or two. And to make things more complex, you may not be ovulating every cycle. In this presentation, I'll go over why ovulation is key to our health and how we can truly support our cycles in a holistic, sustainable way.
Dr. Rosita Arvigo DN
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Doctor of Naprapathy, author, international lecturer, founder of The Arvigo Institute and The Abdominal Therapy Collective, The Traditional Healer’s Association of Belize, Guest on hundreds of podcasts.
Painful Periods and the Wandering Womb
01/25/26 - 2:00pm Eastern Time
When the uterus is out of proper position in the pelvic bowl it does not allow the free flow of arteries, veins, lymph and nerves to move to and from the pelvis. This has proven to be one of the major anatomical causes of painful periods.
Sabrina Rose
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Sabrina Rose is an herbalist, women's health educator, and founder of Moonbeam by Sabrina, a practice supporting young women’s reproductive wellbeing through holistic care and body literacy. She is also the writer, producer, and host of Chaos & Control, a documentary podcast series examining the complex history of birth control in America.
An independent researcher, writer, and poet with a background in medical sociology, Sabrina’s work is informed by years of investigating archives, medical journals, and conducting interviews with historians, sociologists, and reproductive justice advocates who bring histories of contraceptive development into wider conversation. Her work bridges academic research, her own journey with severe menstrual pain, and the wisdom of the women she has learned from to critically examine dominant narratives around women's health and medicine.
Her creative work has appeared in several publications and anthologies, including Cordella Magazine, Luna Luna Magazine, and Bitch Magazine.
With a decade of training in women's health and body literacy, her approach is grounded in reproductive justice frameworks and committed to nuanced conversations that honor both women's embodied experiences and autonomy. She believes understanding our history is essential for creating a more just reproductive future.
The Myth of the Magic Bullet: A Brief History of Hormonal Birth Control
01/25/26 - 4:00pm Eastern Time
This session traces the complex history of hormonal birth control from the exploitative Puerto Rico trials to today's menstrual suppression technologies. We'll examine how the pill became falsely synonymous with reproductive freedom while obscuring its origins in population control and the coercive deployment of technologies like Norplant and Depo-Provera in marginalized communities. Participants will explore how the pathologization of natural cycles and dismissal of women's experiences creates a harmful binary where questioning the pill means betraying feminism. Through historical analysis, we'll challenge dominant narratives and discuss how understanding this history enables more honest conversations about contraceptive options, informed consent, and body literacy. Ideal for practitioners seeking historical context and individuals navigating the polarized landscape of birth control discourse while maintaining commitment to reproductive justice.
