Click here to book Judith Halek for a media appearance, lecture or as a documentarian.

BIOGRAPHY (Go to Credentials)

Since 1987, Judith Elaine Halek, director of Birth Balance, has played an increasingly vital role in the dissemination of "alternative" birthing information and practices throughout the United States and abroad. She has attended and documented through video and photographs, numerous water birth conferences, underwater births in Manhattan homes, the first underwater breech birth in a hospital in the United States and the first water birth in a prominent New York City hospital.

Accomplished birth photographer, certified hypnotherapist and birth counselor as well as a specialist in pre/postnatal fitness and massage, Judith has taught childbirth education classes and served as a labor support doula, emphasizing water labor and water birth. She also has been instrumental in paving the way for the first tubs to be offered in birth centers and hospitals in the greater New York area. A former member of the Board of Directors for the Manhattan chapter of the Childbirth Education Association, Judith now serves on the board of Global Maternal Child Health Association.

With a burgeoning archive of labor and birth documentation across all media (print, still photography, audio, video), Judith is considered the resource center for water labor and water birth on the East Coast. She has had clients and requests for water labor and water birth information from almost every developed country in the world. Since 1987, Judith has attended more than 400 births in homes, hospitals and birth centers and helped over 1,000 couples in welcoming their children into the world.

Recently, Judith was the official Congress photographer for the 5th International Water Birth Conference, in Chicago, Illinois, April 22-25, 2004. Judith will be featuring birth photographs in the, 2005, 5th edition of “Our Bodies, Our Selves.” Birth Balance photographs, were featured in the oldest, (1918) Birth Organization in the United States, Maternity Center Association’s, 2003 Annual Report which came out in 2004. In the Autumn of 2003, Maternity Center Association sponsored the “Listening to Mother’s Forum,” the First National U.S. Survey of Women’s Childbearing Experiences. Birth Balance closed the Forum with an inspirational birth slide presentation. The September 1, 2003, Craine’s New York Business magazine featured Judith Halek’s work in a feature, front page story, “Doin’ What Comes Naturally.”

Super model, Elle MacPherson, actress, Kate Winslett, talk show host, Ricki Lake, Tony award winning actress, soap opera diva, Tonya Pinkins, and CNN, Latino Spokes person for NPR Radio, Maria Hinojosa are just a few of Judith Halek’s clients.

An accomplished speaker and writer, she was instrumental in getting 20/20 to produce two investigative reports on water birth and has appeared on America©ˆs Talking, "Alive and Wellness." Judith spoke on a Women's Health Panel, April 19, 1998 at the Natural Health and Fitness Expo in New York City. In September 1995 Judith was published in the prestigious, Journal of Peri-natal Education, an ASPO/LAMASE publication, reporting on her documentation of the first International Waterbirth Conference in London (April 1-3, 1995). She also documented the First North American Conference on Nurturing Women: Integrating Water into Maternity Care in Greensboro, NC (April 12-14, 1996).

Between, January 1997 - April 2001, Judith produced, filmed, edited and directed; 39 “Alternatives in Childbirth” documentaries, presented through Manhattan Neighborhood Network Cable Station, in NYC. Judith attended the Fourth International Waterbirth Conference, in Portland Oregon, USA, (September 21-28th, 2000) as a written and photo journalist.

Judith was interviewed for Life Time Television, on 'Lifetime Live,' July 20, 2000, covering a piece on underwater birth. Video footage was provided by Birth Balance showing Allen Pavilion Hospital, Birth Center's, FIRST underwater birth, Feb. 14th, 1999.

Judith was also featured in, "Gig, Americans Talk About Their Jobs At The Turn Of The Millennium." She was quoted by Susan Faludi, of The Village Voice, (NYC) as, "The most joyous worker in the book. One of the few who seem to wear their work like a natural skin. She alone of all the chroniclers in Gig experiences her calling as connected with the life force."

 

Click here to book Judith Halek for a media appearance, lecture or as a documentarian.