Gretchen Carleton, CNM
Bio
Gretchen Carleton is a Certified Nurse Midwife (CNM) serving patients at Rainier OB/GYN in Tacoma, Washington. She earned her Master of Science in Nursing from Frontier Nursing University. She values partnering with clients for optimal health outcomes, continuity of care, and shared decision making and believes that the childbearing years are a unique and special time to make an impact on the health of a family.
Gretchen, CNM has been an RN for ten years. Five of which were working on Labor/Delivery at Tacoma General Hospital. Because of her history of planned home births for her children, she naturally was drawn to home birth transfers in the L&D unit. Helping patients navigate the transition to the hospital became her niche while working on the unit.
Gretchen, CNM specializes in normal birth and lactation and has a passion for preparing clients for the birth ahead of them, natural childbirth, getting stalled labors moving again, and helping people learn to breastfeed/chestfeed their infants. She also enjoys midwifery's gynecological aspects, such as diagnosing and treating GYN problems and finding the perfect contraception.
Gretchen, CNM has three young children (the boy baby on the right is her youngest, the others are borrowed) and her hobbies outside of work include swimming anywhere that’s warm enough, hiking all over Washington and the USA, and camping with lots of snacks.
Gretchen’s midwifery mission is to normalize and humanize birth. She will educate and inspire birthing people and their partners that a safe and emotionally satisfying birth is possible and probable. She will help - with reverent awe- them birth, bond with and breastfeed/chestfeed their newborns to get them off to the best possible start in life.