ABOUT DEB

Deb OConnell, CNM, MS, been a midwife for nine years. She began midwifery school in August 2000, graduating Magna Cum Laude with a Master’s of Science degree from Stonybrook University in December 2001. While a midwifery student at Stonybrook, Deb had the opportunity to attend homebirths within the Amish community in Lancaster, PA. This experience with doing homebirth enabled Deb to begin her midwifery career with the understanding of the normalcy of the birthing process and a solid foundation upon which to build her practice as a midwife. While raising three young children in Vermont, Deb continued her midwifery career for the next five years and co-owned Green Mountain Midwifery and Women’s Health with two other nurse-midwives. In August of 2006, she and her partner moved their family to North Carolina where Deb accepted a faculty position at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Deb has experience as a midwife in the home setting, small rural community hospital setting, and as university faculty taking care of low and high risk obstetric clients. She has also gained extensive gynecological experience during her career while working as a nurse practitioner at Planned Parenthood and Keene State College in New Hampshire. Deb always promised herself that once her youngest child (who was a year old when she began midwifery school) had turned ten, she would return to doing what she feels is her calling into midwifery and that is attending women in their homes for birth. Deb and her partner live in Chapel Hill with their three children: Tommy-age 18, Molly-age 15 and Emma-age 10, and Garvey and Bettie (pooch and cat) who keep their lives filled with challenges and joys.