Meet Your Midwife
Cara Frantz, Midwife,
CPM, LDM
I live in Ashland and practice as a Professional Licensed Midwife throughout the greater Ashland & Medford Area, serving families in a home birth setting with over 20 years of experience as a midwife.
I maintain my studies in emergency medicine and occasionally assist as a Doula for families that have chosen a hospital birth.
My own midwifery journey began in 2002 with the pregnancy & home birth of my first son. It was that misty June morning in a cabin in Alaska that I journeyed to my depths and was born a Mother. My son was delivered in the water, under the attentive eyes of two wonderful midwives. I so admired their ability to give seamless support during my ever changing needs in labor, along with always being alert to any medical situations.
Prior to becoming a midwife, I was a paramedic in Alaska, which gave me six years of extensive emergency medical training. It was actually as a paramedic that I assisted with my first birth. Quite the movie scene...
The 911 call came in the middle of a wintery night...eminent birth in a vehicle on the side of the Seward Hwy...my heart skipped a beat and I headed to the fire station in response. The ambulance located the minivan, truly on the side of the highway in a blizzard. Father outside pacing frantically while mother was in the front seat in her night gown, already pushing. The baby was crowning & I noticed two (soon to be) big sisters in the back seat watching starry eyed as their mother delivered her third daughter into the world, perfectly!
We moved the family into the ambulance and headed into the hospital, 50 minutes away. During the drive this wonderfully surprised mother told me how her other daughters were delivered in the hospital, while completely numb on pain medication. She never "felt her babies pass through her” & stated that she “didn’t know that she could birth her babies!” She was so proud of herself.
The gratitude I felt for this mother & her new little baby was overflowing. I was hooked in this moment of witnessing her new sense of empowerment. I knew without a doubt that I had found my calling...to be a midwife.
Midwifery Training
I went on to attend The National College of Midwifery in Taos, New Mexico. There I attended both birth center & rural home births, while learning from one of midwifery's greats..Elizabeth Gillmore. I settled in Ashland Oregon in 2006. Here, I started working with a wonderful nurse-midwife in a home birth practice. I delivered my second son on my bed at home, attended by this nurse-midwife that I had grown to love. I have worked with the midwives and practitioners at Wise Women Care Associates, home of the Trillium Waterbirth Center, in both home and birth center settings. I hold a national certification, CPM, from the North American Registry of Midwives 'NARM', and an Oregon State License.
Midwifery is My Life's Calling
Over the years I have had the pleasure of working with quite a few of the midwives here in the Rogue Valley, and love that families have such individualized care providers to choose from. There is a perfect match for every family whether birthing in a hospital, a birth center or at home.
My passion for the natural process of birth along with maintaining the safety & health of my clients, drives me forward in my continuous study of medicine, nutrition, bodywork and the depths of us as humans. Midwifery is my life's calling, and such a rewarding journey, I am honored to share with and learn from such wonderful families.
Every family that I have the pleasure to care for and birth that I attend broadens my horizons, just as each child does for their parents.
