Shanna is a Christian first, a wife & mother second, and a birthworker third. Her love for birth has existed since she was young, and has only bloomed through the diverse first-hand experiences she has had in all six of her children's pregnancies and births. 

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Shanna's love for Christ is at the core of all she does, causing her to see birth as not only an amazing natural process, but a particularly vulnerable moment in time for both the mom and the baby. Because of this, Shanna has a drive and a passion for training up doulas and birthworkers who can not only support the birth process in the physical way, but also in the spiritual realms. It is truly her desire to honor and protect birth to be all that God has designed and intended it to be. 

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Shanna has a long history and background in the medical field. She entered at 19 years old and held a position as an EMT for over a decade. As she started to homeschool her own children, she knew that she wanted to shift into birth work. She is certified through ICEA, and holds certifications from StillBirthday, and Global Birth Community as a Full Care Doula. She spent several years living in the most diverse square-mile of America, ministering to immigrants and refugees through birth work. That time inspired her to return to her home city and start a nonprofit birth organization (Journey Birth and Wellness) to help serve the underserved populations in her own hometown area.

 

Journey Birth and Wellness was born through her passion for birth and to train up women from different communities and cultures to support their own sisters, neighbors, and friends in birth work and education. Three zip codes in her area have infant mortality rates 3-4x above the national average. She believes that having women who are trained and equipped to be the voice of birth to their communities can make all the difference.

 

Journey Birth and Wellness' mission is to train up doulas to be able to support and educate women from within their own communities. She has trained up some of the first doulas of color, Spanish, and Karen/Thai-speaking birth professionals in the area to start working toward this goal. When women have birth education and support available from within their own community and in their own language, they are empowered to be able to make the best choices for themselves and their babies. This leads to better birth outcomes for moms and babies.

 

Shanna has taken this passion online and overseas to multiply this work globally. This is why Global Birth Community exists! She believes that birth is one of the most critical times in a women's life and they should have access to all the education, support, and community that they seek. It takes a village to raise a child, and she wants to help women thrive into motherhood. She now trains doula all across the US and the globe through Global Birth Community. In the last 12 months she has trained women from seven different countries in-person in Kyrgyzstan and South Africa. She plans on taking 1-2 trips each year overseas to train up indigenous birth workers at no cost to them. This training combines her two biggest passion of working cross-culturally and birth work!