Meet Jana Bowditch of Aspen Midwifery

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jana Bowditch.

Hi Jana, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I grew up living overseas. From a young age, I was always interested in birth and women’s health. I first completed midwifery training at 22 years old at a wonderful birth center in El Paso called Maternidad La Luz. A few years later, I completed a BSN in Nursing at the University of Arizona and worked for 8 years at a Level III NICU. I then obtained my Master’s degree in Nurse-Midwifery in 2016, moved up to Flagstaff, and worked at the Flagstaff Birth and Women’s Center for years before it sadly closed in 2021. Now I run a solo homebirth and women’s health practice and am one of only a handful of CNMs (certified nurse-midwives) who provide homebirth services in the country!

We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It has been a long and winding road to where I am today. At first, I didn’t feel ready to put myself out there and call myself a “midwife” – I just needed more life experience. More recently, when I decided to start my practice, I needed to learn how to run a business. So that was a big leap of faith, and it has been a huge growing experience figuring that all out. One of the biggest challenges of being a homebirth midwife, in particular, is being on call all the time, which significantly impacts my and my family’s quality of life and ability to travel.

As you know, we’re big fans of Aspen Midwifery. What can you tell our readers who might need to be more familiar with the brand?
At the heart of my business, Aspen Midwifery, and the Midwifery Model of Care, is the belief that pregnancy and birth are normal, natural, physiologic events. Our bodies know how to do this, like digesting, breathing, and conceiving! This is not to minimize that potentially very serious complications can and do arise. Still, most of the time, low-risk individuals can have a healthy pregnancy and birth with minimal interventions and the natural process being supported rather than treated as a medical emergency. Midwives excel at caretaking the normal course of pregnancy and birth and thus are well-equipped to identify any complications or deviations from normal that may require medical intervention and transfer of care to an OB or another specialist. Another cornerstone of midwifery is shared-decision making. We pride ourselves on spending time with our clients, getting to know you and your family and your preferences, and ensuring ample time to answer questions and review the risks and benefits of any recommended treatment or course of action. Ultimately, you decide about your care, body, and birth – with the midwife’s guidance and true informed consent or right to refusal. We value autonomy, informed choice, communication, cultural sensitivity and humility, health promotion, and evidence-based practice.

I have completed Aviva Romm’s Women’s Functional and Integrative Medicine Professional Training Program and am excited about implementing these holistic health protocols into my practice. Many people don’t realize that midwives, particularly CNMs, do much more than just birth! I love the women’s health side of my practice – annual exams, Paps, STI testing, lab work, birth control, IUDs, fertility/hormones, and more. I love addressing women’s health challenges from a whole-person, whole-body/mind/spirit perspective and using natural modalities first to help the body heal.

Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
To trust myself and my intuition.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.aspenmidwifery.com
• Instagram: @aspenmidwifery
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aspenmidwifery/

Image Credits
Personal photo: Denice Arnett