🌀 Talk Description

Join Joy Horner for an inspiring and deeply personal journey as she shares stories from her path — from registered nurse and midwife to embracing the sacred calling of birthkeeper. Through storytelling, Joy explores the spiritual and transformative nature of pregnancy, birth, and early parenthood.

Reflecting on lessons learned from courageous women and from her own experiences — including navigating professional investigations and moments of profound challenge — Joy offers insight into what it means to practise with bravery, compassion, and faith in the miracle of birth.

This session invites participants to unlearn medical conditioning, reconnect with the sacredness of birthwork, and approach their calling with reverence, openness, and courage. Joy’s intention is to inspire birthworkers to honour the power within themselves and to rise to meet families with deep respect, trust, and belief in the extraordinary possibilities that unfold at every birth.

👤 Speaker Bio

Joy Horner is a mother of two grown children, a perinatal consultant, and a birth wisdom-keeper. After more than 40 years in service — 20 years as a registered nurse and 21 as a midwife, including 16 years in independent practice — she retired from the midwifery register in 2021.

Joy has attended births in hospitals, birth centres, and homes — in yurts, caravans, and even a barn — holding space for the diversity and wonder of birth. She now mentors and trains birthkeepers, doulas, and midwives through workshops, apprenticeships, and The Birthkeeper’s Path ten-moon course. A speaker at national and international conferences, Joy specialises in supporting families healing from trauma and in guiding birthworkers to practise with compassion, integrity, and faith in the sacred mystery of birth.

Website: birthjoy.co.uk