Pat Sonnenstuhl has spent over 50 years in women’s health
care, starting as a registered nurse in the 1960s and building a full career as a certified nurse midwife before shifting her focus to hypnotherapy and birth education. Today she runs Peaceful Birthing in Olympia, Washington, where she teaches the Blissborn birth hypnosis program and works with clients on hypnosis for fertility, pain management, and surgical preparation.
Education and Training
- Associate of Arts, Nursing, Foothill Junior College, Los Altos, California
- Certificate of Nurse Midwifery, University of Mississippi, with clinical training through Ft. Defiance, Arizona and the Indian Health Service on the Navajo Nation
- Bachelor of Science, Nursing, Holy Names College, Oakland, California, with a focus on community health nursing
- Master of Science with a concentration in Midwifery, Philadelphia University’s Institute of Midwifery, Women, and Health, with research on insulin resistance and the glycemic index in obese pregnant women
- Certified Hypnotherapist, trained in the Charles Tebbetts method under Roy Hunter
- Certified Blissborn Birth Hypnosis Educator, HypnoBirthing Institute
- Additional advanced training in medical hypnotism, pain management hypnosis, and neurolinguistic programming
Clinical Midwifery Career
Pat’s clinical years covered nearly every setting a midwife can work in, from rural solo practice to hospital based teams. Highlights include:
- Staff nurse midwife with Group Health Cooperative in Tacoma and Olympia, with full scope midwifery privileges at Tacoma General and St. Peter Hospital
- Founding the midwifery service at Providence Hospital in Centralia, Washington, building the practice’s clinical protocols from the ground up
- Private practice with South Sound Nurse Midwives in Olympia, in cooperation with South Sound Women’s Center and local OB/GYN physicians, with hospital privileges at Capital Medical Center and Providence St. Peter Hospital
- Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner roles in family planning and women’s health at Planned Parenthood, Thurston County Health Department, Grays Harbor Health Department, and the Northeast Tri-County Health District in Colville, Washington
- Independent and locum midwifery work across Washington and California, including the Spokane Family Birth Center and Highland General Hospital in Oakland
- Early career work in neonatal intensive care and postpartum recovery at hospitals in the San Francisco Bay Area, including developing a mother infant recovery program at Kaiser
- Clinical instructor for OB/GYN rotations at Centralia College and South Puget Sound Community College
Current Practice
Pat now runs Peaceful Birthing, offering Blissborn birth hypnosis classes for expectant parents in the Olympia and South Puget Sound area. She also works as a medical hypnotherapist, helping clients with weight management, fertility, and pain management, drawing on her decades of medical background to ground the mindfulness techniques she teaches. She’s a member of the Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioners of Washington State.