Collective Spotlight: Jen Walts
Meet Jen Walts! Jen is a HypnoBirthing® Educator & Certified Birth Doula . She frequently leads HypnoBirthing® courses at Sanctuary. Visit our events page to learn more.
Why did you want to become a birth worker and childbirth educator?
I became a birth worker and childbirth educator because I had an empowering birth experience. I knew almost immediately after that I wanted to take my passion for education and dive into the world of birth to support families during such a transformational time. I experienced both a medicalized birth/loss and a free-standing birth center-supported, physiologic birth. I was inspired by experiencing the difference in care. I wanted all families to know that choosing the right care team/feeling knowledgeable about options will lead to a more peaceful outcome. Through this work, I am able to combine my passions for social justice, reproductive justice, advocacy, education, transformation, holding space, breath work, meditation, movement, connection to nature, and deep soul work all while experiencing the honor of witnessing a family's sacred rite of passage.
What have you gained from this work?
From this work, I've gained a greater connection to nature, community, my family, my spirit, and a layered understanding of our healthcare system. I have learned how to empower families to identify their core values that they'd like to see present in their birth experience. I have gained a stronger voice and used this to empower others to use their own voice as they take on birth as a radical responsibility.
What do you hope your clients feel after working with you?
In birth doula care, I hope clients feel seen, heard, and ready to take on the many more decisions that the parenting journey will involve. I hope they feel as though they are the only family I'm working with, and that I am fully present for our work together—a mirror holding up important reflective questions that they desire to ask themselves. I hope that they feel supported and deeply cared for—that they leave with tools that encourage continued evolution through this life.
In teaching HypnoBirthing®, I hope families feel extremely prepared for whatever twists & turns this birth experience presents. I hope that students feel a sense of gratitude for their bodies, their intuition, their knowledge, their birth team, and an excitement for the adventure ahead.
How does your work inform your activism or understanding of the world?
Birth work is activism. Encouraging and empowering families to discern what their beliefs are about birth—to shut out all the societal noise—to dig deep and let themselves know what agency they will have in something that is patterned yet sometimes unpredictable. I am not shy in naming the different management styles of birth providers and what risks come along with certain choices. My long-term activism is in sharing tools and resources with families so that they are prepared to navigate the medical industrial complex. My day-to-day or birth-to-birth activism is to help families ask solid questions in moments where important decisions need to be made and to advocate for birth preferences—to encourage them to regulate their nervous system through the process of birth so they can make clear, informed decisions—to hire a birth team that aligns with the philosophies they have around birth itself for an ultimately safer outcome for all involved.
What's your favorite season of the year and why?
I love spring. The invitation to begin and all of its true creation energy. Returning outside more often and seeing new rocks and moss in places I hadn't noticed before. Seeing the water flow again and the wind spread seeds of my favorite maple tree. It reminds me of hope that is often hard to grasp in a world that is aching in many different ways.
What has made you smile recently that you feel the need to share?
My toddler recently decided he is into making forts. We'll set it up, he'll ask for a flashlight, then sneak through the side-blanket-door and tell me he'd like some time alone to read his favorite book in his comfy, new, temporary fort. When his world is still and he advocates for slowness and to be with himself—it reminds me to do the same.
