Back in 2009, midwife Charlie Rae Young and a partner founded Barefoot Birth with a very important purpose in mind. She wants to provide expectant families with the highest quality natural birthing services available, while also offering the most caring and supportive prenatal and postpartum care available in the Tampa Bay Area of Florida. This follows something of a pattern for Charlie Rae Young, whose career as a doula/midwife has included significant advocacy for improved quality in the birth experience. That is because she has always advocated for better care for expectant families.
Charlie Rae Young loves every aspect of her career as a doula, although she is especially fond of keeping up with the families she has helped for years after the birth. She finds it exciting when she watches a child whose births she attended grow up begin school. Someday, she’ll watch some of them get married, go to college, or even hire her to attend the births of their children and that prospect is wonderful. In addition to watching the children grow up, Charlie also takes great pride when she sees the doulas trained by Barefoot Birth grow strong practices of their own. Since she founded her company and before, Charlie Rae Young has attended hundreds of births as a doula, or midwife. She feels that it is her calling to help expectant families fill a gap when it comes to their desire to engage in a natural childbirth. She provides services to families who would prefer that over the more traditional hospital birth experience, which these days includes a whole lot of medications, many of which she feels are completely unnecessary. Doula and midwife Charlie Young doesn’t simply help mother bring their most precious blessings into the world; she speaks to countless women and parents regularly on the topic, both formally and informally as a birthing care advocate. Young, who is based in Florida and the owner and founder of Barefoot Birth, has worked as a midwife since 2009 following training and education in the field from the Florida School of Traditional Midwifery. She is a Florida Licensed Midwife (MW276) and regularly attends additional schooling to maintain the latest knowledge within this natural field of childbirth.
Although her particular work does not utilize the often over-medicalized school of thought in traditional birthing methods, Young’s use of midwifery is increasingly used by women in today’s society -- families who choose naturally-minded means and yet still desire safe, quality care. Young believes all families deserve this type of care and she hopes to continue to build stronger communities through beautiful births. Thus far, in her eight years of work as a midwife and with her business Barefoot Birth, Charlie Young has attended hundreds of births in addition to her plentiful work as an advocate for this premiere care in a marginalized, stigmatized world. Many of her ideas have been published by area and trade publications, including Tampa Tribune and FOCUS Magazine, in addition to her work with organizations such as The Birth Survey and Coalition for Improving Maternity Services. |