The Q&A: Humboldt Episode 13: Tracy Lough & Olympia McCutchan, Welcoming Dawn Midwifery

In this episode we are joined by the women of Welcoming Dawn Midwifery Olympia McCutchan and Tracy Lough Olympia McCutchan is a California Licensed Midwife and a Certified Professional Midwife. Additionally, she is a Wilderness First Responder, Reiki 1 certified, a student herbalist and mid-level Spanish speaker. She is a mother or two children, both born at home with the care of Midwives. She teaches Holistic childbirth education classes and will begin teaching Health classes for children and young adults in the Fall 2018. Her studies have taken her from University in Santa Cruz, CA to a Midwifery apprenticeship in Bristol, Vermont, to a Midwifery clinical residency in El Paso, Texas. Returning to her childhood home of Humboldt County, she has brought midwifery care to both town and rural areas of the county. In total, she has attended over 190 births. Tracy Lough, LM, CPM, is a local home birth midwife with Welcoming Dawn Midwifery. She is owner of the “Birth Yurt” located in Fieldbrook, CA. Tracy meets each birth experience with gentleness, respect and safety while supporting the mother and family’s needs and wishes. She was inspired by her own birthing experiences with midwives and has been able to provide a high standard of pregnancy care coupled with a more caring, personal and intimate birth experience. She feels welcomed in as a guest for each birth to ensure mother and baby’s safety or is able to provide doula support at the hospital if that is the safest place for a baby to arrive. Tracy offers affordable care because she believes low-risk pregnancies often achieve the best outcome with home birth and every women desiring to have their baby at home with a midwife should have that option. In addition to her midwifery practice, Tracy is able to provide Craniosacral Therapy for mothers and babies, teaches hypnobirthing, offers placenta encapsulation and runs a Waldorf-Inspired Outdoor Nature Preschool on her homestead.