Janel came into her vocation as a birth worker organically. As a self-proclaimed “birth nerd”,  her comically unnatural fascination with placenta physiology led her to medical school where she specialized in and published work on clinical obstetrics and medical education. 

In 2016, Janel worked side-by-side with midwives and physicians to deliver up to 70+ births a day at Mulago National Hospital in Kampala, Uganda. Her essay chronicling her life-changing experience as a global health worker won international recognition from the Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH).

Since then, Janel has attended hundreds of births and continues to be an advocate for empowered and compassionate birth. For Janel, birth is a threshold - a monumental and transformative experience for the birthing family - that leaves no one unchanged. Her own unplanned home birth to her daughter added even more personal conviction to her belief in the positive impact birth support can have for expecting families. 

Janel is a seasoned educational resource for expecting families. She worked as a Senior Birth Consultant at Phoebe for 5 years and designed their online childbirth education and birth prep curriculum available to families in the US, UK and Canada. She has been invited to speak as an educator to member families at WeConcieve as they prepare for birth and parenthood. She is currently a birth provider at Maven Clinic.

In 2020, Janel co-founded Birth to Baby Journey, with Manon Chevallerau. They provide in-person and virtual collaborative support to families in the NYC area, and also host doula education trainings for birth and postpartum workers.

Janel relies on her expertise and experience within hospital culture and the medical system to help her clients navigate the changing policies of the labor and postpartum wards in the NYC area. She provides families with science-driven information to help them make the most-informed decisions for their personalized care.