North Carolina Babies
Birthing Center Tour! AW!
Two thumbs up! DH and I had our first visit to the Birthing Center in Chapel Hill and we're very excited now. They were very thorough with all their information and statistics and they answered all our questions/concerns. Although DH was on board with me from the beginning, some of his concerns are now at ease and he feels very secure and reassured with our choice to have our baby at the birthing center rather than a hospital. I'm just so excited things are moving along...yay! Our next visit is at the end of the month.
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Re: Birthing Center Tour! AW!
I'm glad you liked it!
Question - at a birthing center, do you stay overnight/for a few days or go home pretty soon after you have the baby?
Yay! Glad you liked it! You'll really enjoy your appointments too.
Backthepack- you normally go home within 12 hours of delivering. If you're not physically able to go, you can be transferred to a hospital.
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It's very different. The birth center is staffed by midwives and not doctors. They follow the "Midwives Model of Care" instead of the "Medical Model of Care." Basically that means that they view pregnancy and childbirth as a natural life event and not a medical event, therefore medical interventions are not usually necessary. Here's a link that explains the differences more: https://www.morningstarbirth.com/index.cfm?event=pageview&contentPieceID=3225.
All the midwives there are Certified Nurse Midwives, which means they all have a nursing degree plus the additional credits to become nurse midwives. They help the women there to have a natural childbirth. You can deliver in a tub if you want. They also have birthing stools you can use, or you can deliver in a bed. The rooms are more like bedrooms than hospital rooms.
There is not access to an epidural there. You can get some pain meds like Nubain, I think, but I don't know what all is available. They also have pitocin on hand, but they only use it after delivery if the uterus isn't contracting enough on its own. They do not encourage the use of medications during labor. They allow you to eat and drink during labor if you want. They will follow your birth plan.
If you deliver there, you are required to take some sort of class to prepare for a natural chidlbirth (we did the Bradley method). They also strongly encourage breastfeeding and they ask everyone to take a breastfeeding class & they offer one for free.
The appts are different too. Your 1st appt is scheduled for an hour and subsequent appts are half an hour. You don't have to stay that long of course, but they give you plenty of time to talk and ask questions. They also seem to genuinely care about their patients. I had some really long talks with some of the midwives and I appreciated that they really listened to me and gave me good, realistic advice.
HTH some!
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I have two friends that started labor there but then were transferred to the hospital after a prolonged labor. They midwife stayed with them, they didn't need c-sections and they felt very cared for. It was nice to know that if something did go wrong and we needed to be transferred to the hospital, the midwives are awesome at handling that. My birth was very textbook though and I can't wait to do it again there!