what is a birth center?

What is a Birth Center?

The birth center is a health care facility for childbirth where care is provided in the midwifery and wellness model. The birth center is freestanding and not a hospital.

Birth centers are an integrated part of the health care system and are guided by principles of prevention, sensitivity, safety, appropriate medical intervention and cost-effectiveness. While the practice of midwifery and the support of physiologic birth and newborn transition may occur in other settings, this is the exclusive model of care in a birth center.

The birth center respects and facilitates a woman’s right to make informed choices about her health care and her baby’s health care based on her values and beliefs. The woman’s family, as she defines it, is welcome to participate in the pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum period.

The birth center can be described with 5 Ps:


PEOPLE

Healthy women anticipating a low-risk pregnancy and birth

Licensed, qualified staff with full comprehension of limits of midwifery practice and insured for professional liability

Qualified obstetric/pediatric consultants

PLACE

Home-like - a maximized home rather than a mini-hospital

Meets all construction, fire and safety, and health codes

Equipped to provide routine care and initiate emergency procedures

Freestanding facility - separate from acute obstetric/newborn care with autonomy in formulation of policy and management of operation

Located so that there is reasonable cesarean section capability

PROGRAM

Orientation and informed consent

Antepartum care including continuous screening by history, physical exam, routine laboratory tests and health counseling

Plan for participation of family members as defined by woman receiving care

Educational program that includes component of self-care/self-help

Plan for payment of services

Twenty-four hour telephone access to care provider

Intrapartum care with a midwife or physician in constant attendance during active labor

Postpartum/newborn care supervised by licensed nurse or midwife

Required newborn laboratory screening tests

Plan for newborn health supervision at center or by referral

Home-office visits for postpartum newborn follow-up

Provision for support in parenting and breastfeeding

PRACTICE OF MIDWIFERY

Midwifery is Primary Care that emphasizes:
Support for pregnancy and birth as a natural physiological process - “normal until proven otherwise;”
Prevention of disease/promotion of health;
Individual responsibility and self-sufficiency through education;
A systems approach to the delivery of health services;
That midwifery may be practiced by any qualified, licensed provider willing to embrace the philosophy of midwifery and obtain the knowledge and skills needed for midwifery practice.

Midwifery Primary Care is a first-level entry into a health-oriented system, triaging when the process of pregnancy and birth departs from its normal course.

It is dependent upon:
Laboratory services;
Availability of specialist services;
Access to acute care services;

Separation of primary care from acute care in pregnancy and childbirth is the most important principle of the birth center concept.

The interdependent relationship between the birth center and acute care services:

PART OF THE SYSTEM

Has written policies and procedures that reflect standard quality assurance

Relationship with other community health agencies for complementary services

Arrangement for referral and transfer to other levels of care

Access to an acute care obstetrical/newborn unit