Janel utilizes an integrative approach to birth and postpartum prep tailored to the birthing family’s values & vision for their birth.

This means she provides comprehensive, no-nonsense and practical information to expecting parents while also exploring and addressing their individual values and needs.

Birth Support Offerings

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COMPREHENSIVE & NUANCED BIRTH PREP AND BIRTH SUPPORT.

  • Full birth package Includes:

    • 4-week on-call period*

    • Birth support: virtual support for early labor, in-person support at home or in hospital for active labor, coaching for stage 2 (pushing) labor and immediate postpartum support in-hospital for lactation as needed

    • Up to 8 prenatal sessions equivalent to up to 24 hours of private and individualized virtual and in-person prep sessions

    • In-person guidance on setting up feeding station and changing station

    • All birth + postpartum prep courses (childbirth education, birth planning, navigating the hospital, birth advocacy, feeding education, coping skills, infant CPR/choking)

    • Access to prenatal support via phone or text in pregnancy to address any concerns and anxieties

    • Up to 2 postpartum sessions for feeding support

    *On-call periods can be flexible in the event of pre-term labor or post-term labor as contingencies are in place to ensure birth support

    • Geared for second-time parents

    • Please reach out for more info

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MINDFULNESS-BASED YOGA & REIKI FOR THE EXPECTING PARENT.

  • Many birthing folks use yoga as a tool to prepare their bodies and minds for labor. Janel offers 60-min in-person or virtual yoga sessions where expecting parents practice mindful moving and breathing. Expect to breathe deeply, build gentle heat and close class in a restorative pose.

    • Reiki is an East Asian energy-healing practice dating back to 2500 years ago. In the 1900s, Dr Mikao Usui formalized the practices of reiki into the modern discipline as it exists today.

    • Reiki therapy is safe during pregnancy and postpartum. The word REIKI stems from the Japanese words “rei,” meaning universal, and “ki,” meaning vital life force energy. A reiki practitioner can channel reiki energy to you by hovering their hands over different areas of your body. They use a series of hand positions to help ki energy move through.

Birth and Lactation Education

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BIRTH EDUCATION

  • In this private 3-hour course:

    • Familiarize yourself with the hospital culture: your birth team, the importance of informed consent, how your medical team manages risk

    • Develop a positive-minded framework that centers YOU and YOUR VALUES in the labor room

    • Learn how to advocate with yourself and/or work with your doula and birth partner to ensure that your autonomy is respected

    • Learn the most common interventions along with the pros and cons, address “what-if” situations, explore frameworks to help in informed medical decision-making and understand the role of each member of your birth team

    • Learn where to access evidence-based information and, importantly, how to work and communicate effectively with your birth team

    • In this private 3-hour session:

      • Examine pain in labor to understand birth as a physical, mental and emotional experience.

      • Explore your relationship to physical discomfort and how your personal history with pain can show up in your labor

      • Receive a toolkit of techniques you can use to aid in emotional and physical coping for pregnancy and labor

      • Learn and practice positions and movements that can aid in labor progress

      • Learn poses, positions and movements you can do NOW to get your body ready for labor

      • Build confidence in your ability to cope when labor feels challenging

  • Not all labors start spontaneously (on their own). Some labors start with the aid of medical interventions in a process called medical induction.

    This course is designed for families who are planning a medical induction for elective or medical reasons.

    In this course:

    • Learn the medical interventions your medical team can use to get your body into labor

    • Learn the pros and cons of each intervention

    • Learn how the medical team monitors labor progress

    • Explore how to maintain and exert your autonomy in the hospital setting in a high-intervention birth

    • Receive guidance on how to clarify your vision for your medical induction birth

  • In this private 2-hour session:

    • Learn and practice breathing techniques to help aid relaxation in labor

    • Learn how to connect with your pelvic floor through breath, and how your pelvis and baby interact during stage 2 (pushing stage) labor

    • Practice specific breathing techniques for each stag of labor: early labor, active labor, pushing and crowning

    • Understand the biomechanics of pushing and explore ways to prepare your body for stage 2 labor

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POSTPARTUM EDUCATION

    • Discuss your expectations and vision for your postpartum period

    • Explore your changing role and identity as an expecting and new parent and how the dynamics of your relationship and family have changed/changes with a new baby

    • Explore ways to create and personalize your postpartum village of support

    • Learn the physiological changes that occur after birth and what is normal for the postpartum period.

    • Explore and learn systems you can have in place to ensure the wellness of the recovering parent/new mom/new dad

    • Guidance on setting up your home for postpartum

    • Receive referrals for postpartum doulas, night doulas, night nurses, pelvic floor PTs and mental health therapists

    • In this private 3-hour session:

      • Clarify and discuss your short-term and long-term feeding goals

      • Explore how to manage expectations based on your infant feeding goals

      • Address specific anxieties and concerns you have about feeding and postpartum

      • Learn the different ways to feed your baby and explore the logistics of each method

      • Learn and practice the basic lactation skills such as latching, unlatching, and feeding positions, and responsive-bottle-feeding

      • Learn how to treat engorgement and clogged ducts

      • Receive guidance on setting up your feeding station and mechanical breast pump (if you choose to pump)

  • Guidance, support and education on:

    • Clarifying feeding goals and guidance on creating a short-term and long-term plan on how to achieve them

    • Creating a sustainable feeding schedule for your family

    • Choosing formulas, bottles and pacifiers (if you choose to use them)

    • Latching + unlatching techniques

    • Nipple care for the lactating parent

    • Positioning baby for feeds in sustainable + effective ways

    • Maintaining + increasing milk supply to promote breast/chest-feeding or for storage of milk

    • Managing the challenges of oversupply

    • Pumping - options, methods, techniques

    • Breast/chest-feeding and returning to work

  • Appropriate for parents/caregivers of infants under 1 year old; for people who want to learn infant CPR but do not need a course completion card in CPR for their job