Carissa Marie St Onge Carneiro, CNM

Carissa knew from a young age she wanted to be a nurse-midwife and couldn’t imagine anything else she’d rather do. “As a midwife, I have the opportunity to honor each birthing person’s journey in a gentle, comforting and intuitive way. I love offering evidence-based care and witnessing a new family bloom,” she shares. 
After graduating from University of Portland with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, Carissa volunteered as a maternity nurse at a community birth center on the Texas/Mexico border. Returning to Oregon after this eye-opening experience, she dove into motherhood for herself. After birthing and raising her own three children, and with the full support of her husband, Carissa completed her Master of Science in Nursing with a focus on nurse-midwifery at Frontier Nursing University. 
“Motherhood is teaching me patience and flexibility beyond imagination,” she says. “I believe all decisions, choices, paths, interactions, relationships, traumas and opportunities I have encountered these 40-plus years have prepared and molded me into the midwife and woman I am today.” 
Carissa enjoys educating her patients about their reproductive health and helping them plan their families through medical and natural family planning techniques. She promotes a healthy and calm postpartum experience for both partners. 
When she’s not supporting families and catching babies, you can look for Carissa in the woods — backpacking, foraging for mushrooms or doing yoga. She’s married to a Brazilian and speaks Portuguese as well as Spanish.