Carrie Levine, a nurse midwife with 15 years of experience in health care for women, will open Whole Woman Health in Newcastle Monday, Feb. 3.
Levine, of Newcastle, will offer a comprehensive range of health-care services for women at the clinic. She currently practices at Women to Women in Yarmouth and believes there is a strong need for similar services in this area.
“I’ve had many women, over the years, stop me at the grocery store and say ‘Where are you? What are you doing? Can I come there?’ or ‘Who should I see?’ or ‘I have this going on, any suggestions?’ ” Levine said.
“At Women to Women, we see women from all over the world, and a lot of them are from the Midcoast area,” Levine said. Whole Woman Health will give Midcoast women the opportunity to receive the same care without the long drive.
The services available at Whole Woman Health will include comprehensive gynecology and reproductive health, digestive health, and hormone balancing.
Levine also practices functional medicine, which uses lifestyle and nutrition management to treat chronic disease.
Today, for many people, “it’s not enough” to receive a diagnosis and take a medication, Levine said. “They want to know why they have a particular diagnosis and why they don’t feel well.”
Levine works with patients to determine the root cause for their symptoms and help “restore balance,” which can eliminate or lessen the need for medication.
For example, for a patient experiencing trouble with digestion, Levine could test for food sensitivities, “gut balance” and other factors.
Levine would then work with the patient to remove inflammatory foods, add probiotic supplements, if necessary, and take other steps to help the patient feel well again.
If a patient comes to Levine with depression and anti-depressants are not effective for the patient, Levine can provide a variety of alternatives.
Good exercise and nutrition plans and strong stress management skills can help combat depression. Levine can also test levels of neurotransmitters like serotonin and, again, take steps to restore balance and wellness.
Whole Woman Health will also offer First Line Therapy, a 12-week program to treat chronic disease like high blood pressure, high cholesterol or Type 2 diabetes.
The program is “phenomenal” for the patient who “really wants to dig in” in terms of using exercise, lifestyle and nutrition to combat their disease, Levine said.
Levine will coach the patients and provide “time-intensive care,” which can be hard for practitioners in the “more conventional health-care system,” she said.
Levine works closely with primary-care physicians, physical therapists, counselors, OB-GYNs, endocrinologists and others in the health-care field. She believes patients need a health-care team and “the more people you have on the team, the greater capacity you have for wellness.”
Levine has a Bachelor of Science degree in public relations and women’s studies from Syracuse University, where she met her future husband, Brian Manahan.
She earned a Master of Science in nursing from Case Western Reserve University and a certificate in nurse midwifery from the Frontier School of Midwifery and Family Nursing.
Levine and Manahan both had childhood ties to Maine. Levine, a native of the Boston, Mass. area, attended a summer camp in Maine as a girl, while Manahan vacationed with his family on Damariscotta Lake.
After graduate school, Levine began her professional career in 1999 as a nurse midwife at the Miles Memorial Hospital Women’s Center in Damariscotta, where she would stay until 2006. From 2006 to the present, she has practiced at Women to Women.
Whole Woman Health is at 608 River Rd. in Newcastle. For more information, call 350-6221, email wholewomanhealthcare@gmail.com or visit http://www.wholewomanhealthcare.com.
