At the heart of Frontier Nursing University is a talented community of students, graduates, faculty, staff, Couriers and preceptors. Spotlight blogs feature members of our FNU community who are focused on the mission of educating nurse-midwives and nurse practitioners to work with all people, with an emphasis on rural and underserved communities.
Frontier Nursing University (FNU) graduate Caroline Riegel, MSN, APRN, CNM, RNC-OB, C-EFM, had a truly once-in-a-lifetime experience to kick off 2026: delivering the first baby born on United States soil in the new year.
A resident of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. Commonwealth, Riegel helped welcome the baby at 4:09 a.m. Chamorro Standard Time. Back on the East Coast, the clock read 1:09 p.m. on Dec. 31, underscoring just how early her New Year began.
“I will forever have bragging rights to catching the first baby born on U.S. soil in 2026, and I look forward to pulling that out as a conversation topic at parties,” Riegel said.
Riegel has served as a nurse-midwife with the Commonwealth Healthcare Corporation in the Northern Mariana Islands since 2023 and currently holds the role of Midwife Co-Chair for the Obstetrics Department. She earned the hospital’s “most babies caught” honor in both 2024 and 2025. In fact, she also delivered the first baby born at the hospital in 2025.
“2026 was especially exciting because I caught the very first baby to be born on U.S. soil, beating Guam,” she explained.
At Commonwealth Healthcare, Riegel cares for rural and underserved patients across the Northern Mariana Islands, a remote U.S. Commonwealth made up of a 14-island chain. While the southern islands of Saipan, Tinian, and Rota are the most populated, the majority of residents live on Saipan, home to the Commonwealth’s only inpatient hospital. Riegel noted that many of her patients rely on Medicaid, while others are uninsured due to their work-visa status.
In addition to her role as a hospitalist in the Labor & Delivery Unit, Riegel provides full-scope care at the hospital-based Women’s Clinic, serving patients from menarche through menopause. Her patient population reflects the diversity of the islands, with approximately 30% identifying as Indigenous Chamorro and Carolinian islanders, 30% Filipina, 20% Southeast Asian—including Chinese, Japanese, and Korean—and 20% of mixed heritage or other backgrounds. Riegel provides comprehensive well-woman gynecologic care, along with prenatal, intrapartum, and postpartum services for the local pregnant population. The hospital delivers approximately 500 babies each year.
“My favorite part will always be the moment at birth when the baby takes his/her first cry and the parents get to meet their new baby,” she said.
Riegel is also involved in the indigenous-based Latte Group Prenatal Care program, launched last year by her midwife colleague and fellow FNU graduate, Corie Parada. The program takes its name from the ancient Latte stones, massive pillars once used by the Chamorro people to support their homes, and reflects a culturally grounded approach to prenatal care.
In addition, Riegel serves as chair of the hospital’s STEPS team as part of the CHAMPS National initiative, a collaborative effort led by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Center for Health Equity, Education, and Research at Boston Medical Center. The initiative works to strengthen maternal and child health practices nationwide by supporting 100 hospitals. Through participation in CHAMPS, the hospital has significantly increased the number of families able to experience an uninterrupted “Golden Hour” after birth and has improved breastfeeding initiation rates, Riegel said.
Beyond her clinical work, Riegel is deeply committed to education. She serves as an adjunct instructor in the nursing program at Northern Marianas College, where she teaches skills lab and clinicals for the Maternal Child Health course. Riegel has also supported the next generation of midwives by serving as a preceptor for a Frontier nurse-midwifery student from October 2022 through January 2023.
Riegel earned her Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) in Nurse-Midwifery at Frontier in 2020 and is currently pursuing a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP), with plans to graduate in March 2027.
After graduating from nursing school in 2015, Riegel began her career as a Labor & Delivery nurse at a large hospital in the metro Atlanta area. She worked alongside several provider groups that included midwives, an experience she credits with inspiring her path into midwifery. Among those who influenced her were FNU graduates, Dr. Corie Abrams and Dr. Amanda Zimmerman.
Riegel said she ultimately chose to pursue her MSN at FNU for a combination of reasons, including the clinical skill and professionalism she observed in FNU graduates, the distance education model, and the institution’s values and ethos.
“Once I learned more about Mary Breckinridge and the Frontier Nursing Service, I realized that I held similar values in providing care in rural and underserved environments,” she said.
After earning her MSN, Riegel worked as a nurse-midwife for Geisinger Health System in Pennsylvania from 2021 to 2023 before taking on her current role in Saipan. She said when applying for both positions, she was recruited and interviewed by FNU graduates.
“I felt confident and assured in accepting each position knowing that I would be working with midwives who had been through the same rigorous program,” she said.
Riegel said she remains connected to the FNU community through social media.
“We still circle-up together for a midwife in need, and that’s a beautiful thing,” she said.
Riegel said she encourages those interested in becoming a nurse-midwife to be prepared to network extensively, advocate for their salary and benefits, and remain open to relocating in order to find the right opportunity.
“Midwifery is a lifestyle and you have to have a passion for it,” she said. “Sleepless nights, crazy schedules, and sometimes challenging outcomes are very much a reality.”
Outside of her professional work and studies, Riegel is deeply committed to animal welfare, with a particular focus on trap-neuter-release (TNR) efforts and cat rehabilitation on the island of Saipan. With no permanent veterinarian on the island, she described the stray cat and dog situation as “dire.” Since relocating to Saipan, Riegel has helped spay and neuter more than 40 cats and has placed 20 kittens into adoptive homes. She currently cares for two indoor cats and seven outdoor cats.
Riegel also enjoys traveling internationally, taking advantage of her location in the Western Pacific to explore destinations such as Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, and Malaysia.
Thank you, Caroline, for the care, passion, and leadership you bring to your patients, your community, and the global midwifery profession.
To read more graduate stories, visit the FNU Alumni stories page.
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Angie has been a full-scope midwife since 2009. She has experience in various birth settings including home, hospital, and birth centers. She is committed to integrating the midwifery model of care in the US. She completed her master’s degree in nurse-midwifery at Frontier Nursing University (FNU) and her Doctorate at Johns Hopkins University. She currently serves as the midwifery clinical faculty at FNU. Angie is motivated by the desire to improve the quality of healthcare and has led quality improvement projects on skin-to-skin implementation, labor induction, and improving transfer of care practices between hospital and community midwives. In 2017, she created a short film on skin-to-skin called 
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Dr. Sabrina Ali Jamal-Eddine is an Arab-disabled queer woman of color with a PhD in Nursing and an interdisciplinary certificate in Disability Ethics from the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). Dr. Jamal-Eddine’s doctoral research explored spoken word poetry as a form of critical narrative pedagogy to educate nursing students about disability, ableism, and disability justice. Dr. Jamal-Eddine now serves as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in UIC’s Department of Disability and Human Development and serves on the Board of Directors of the National Organization of Nurses with Disabilities (NOND). During her doctoral program, Sabrina served as a Summer Fellow at a residential National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH) Summer Institute at Arizona State University (2023), a summer fellow at Andrew W. Mellon’s National Humanities Without Walls program at University of Michigan (2022), a Summer Research Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Othering & Belonging Institute (2021), and an Illinois Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and related Disabilities (LEND) trainee (2019-2020).
Vanessa Cameron works for Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nursing Education & Professional Development. She is also attending George Washington University and progressing towards a PhD in Nursing with an emphasis on ableism in nursing. After becoming disabled in April 2021, Vanessa’s worldview and perspective changed, and a recognition of the ableism present within healthcare and within the culture of nursing was apparent. She has been working since that time to provide educational foundations for nurses about disability and ableism, provide support for fellow disabled nursing colleagues, and advocate for the disabled community within healthcare settings to reduce disparities.
Dr. Lucinda Canty is a certified nurse-midwife, Associate Professor of Nursing, and Director of the Seedworks Health Equity in Nursing Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Columbia University, a master’s degree from Yale University, specializing in nurse-midwifery, and a PhD from the University of Connecticut. Dr. Canty has provided reproductive health care for over 29 years. Her research interests include the prevention of maternal mortality and severe maternal morbidity, reducing racial and ethnic health disparities in reproductive health, promoting diversity in nursing, and eliminating racism in nursing and midwifery.
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Dr. Nikia Grayson, DNP, MSN, MPH, MA, CNM, FNP-C, FACNM (she/her) is a trailblazing force in reproductive justice, blending her expertise as a public health activist, anthropologist, and family nurse-midwife to champion the rights and health of underserved communities. Graduating with distinction from Howard University, Nikia holds a bachelor’s degree in communications and a master’s degree in public health. Her academic journey also led her to the University of Memphis, where she earned a master’s in medical anthropology, and the University of Tennessee, where she achieved both a master’s in nursing and a doctorate in nursing practice. Complementing her extensive education, she completed a post-master’s certificate in midwifery at Frontier Nursing University.
Dr. Tia Brown McNair is the Vice President in the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Student Success and Executive Director for the Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) Campus Centers at the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) in Washington, DC. She oversees both funded projects and AAC&U’s continuing programs on equity, inclusive excellence, high-impact practices, and student success. McNair directs AAC&U’s Summer Institutes on High-Impact Practices and Student Success, and TRHT Campus Centers and serves as the project director for several AAC&U initiatives, including the development of a TRHT-focused campus climate toolkit. She is the lead author of From Equity Talk to Equity Walk: Expanding Practitioner Knowledge for Racial Justice in Higher Education (January 2020) and Becoming a Student-Ready College: A New Culture of Leadership for Student Success (July 2016 and August 2022 Second edition).