St Mary’s Opens In-Hospital Natural Childbirth Center

By Andrew Gorosko

WATERBURY — St Mary’s Hospital is offering an alternative to conventional maternity care in the form of The Birthplace, an in-hospital facility for natural childbirth, with midwife-directed care for women with low-risk pregnancies.

The Birthplace is located in a homelike suite of rooms in the hospital, just down the hall from a neonatal intensive care nursery and conventional maternity unit where traditional labor and delivery services are provided.

The Birthplace, which is the only such in-hospital facility in the state, has been accredited by the Commission for the Accreditation of Birth Centers. Although there is another accredited, midwife-directed birth center in Danbury, it is not located within a hospital.

Of the 50 accredited birth centers in the United States, only five, including the one in St Mary’s Hospital, are located within a hospital, according to St Mary’s.

St Mary’s Hospital is a non-profit Catholic community hospital in downtown Waterbury.

Meredith Goff, a certified nurse-midwife, who is the midwifery director at The Birthplace, said the center is designed to provide a pleasant, relaxing, homelike setting for women. The five midwives who supervise births are hospital nurses. Midwives are licensed by the state.

Dr S. Mark Albini, chairman of the hospital’s obstetrics and gynecology department, is the medical director of The Birthplace.

“We are here to promote normal, unmedicated childbirth,” Ms Goff said.

Labor may last from a few minutes to many hours. Stays for women after giving birth at The Birthplace range from four to 12 hours, with a typical stay being about 10 hours, in comparison to a conventional post-partum hospital stay of 48 hours, Ms Goff said.

To prepare mothers-to-be for natural childbirth, The Birthplace provides extensive education about its early discharge policy, she said. When a woman gives birth there, she must assume more responsibility for her own health than she would after delivering a bay in a conventional maternity unit, Ms Goff said.

No anesthesia or medications are used during the natural childbirth process, Ms Goff said. However, the center has oxygen and emergency medications on hand, if they are needed, she added.

Natural Childbirth

The center uses non-pharmacological means of pain relief, such as a whirlpool tub, a shower, various resting positions, massage, and the presence of family members, she said. About 15 women have given underwater birth to their babies while in the tub.

Natural childbirth produces babies who are more alert and who are better able to breast-feed sooner after birth than babies who are conventionally delivered, Ms Goff said.

“We screen, and screen, and screen,” Ms Goff said of The Birthplace’s extensive medical review of pregnant women who plan to give birth there to ensure that they have low-risk pregnancies. Women who have diabetes or high blood pressure are excluded due to possible complications, she said. Having twins requires a more medically complex setting than is available at The Birthplace, she said.

After a woman decides she wants to have natural childbirth at the center, she sees a midwife, she attends preparatory classes, and then reviews pertinent information, Ms Goff said. When the mother-to-be arrives at The Birthplace, she is met there by her midwife and a private-duty nurse. The nurse is with the mother during her stay at the center.

As of early July, 78 babies had been born at The Birthplace since it opened in January 2000. Approximately 1,300 infants are born at the hospital annually.

A midwife-directed natural childbirth center is new to Waterbury, Ms Goff said.

Waterbury is a very diverse community and a wide range of people have used The Birthplace since it opened, she said. Some teenagers have given birth there. Couples having their first baby have used the facility. A couple had its fifth baby at The Birthplace. One woman gave birth two different times at the center. Professional women in their late 30s and their 40s have given birth there, Ms Goff said.

The hospital had expected that the majority of women using The Birthplace would have previously given birth, Ms Goff said. However, about half of the women who have used The Birthplace had their first child there, she noted.

Typically, husbands who become involved in the birth process accompany their wives to the center. Also, the mother’s previous children are encouraged to attend, provided that they have an adult designated to monitor them.

What that unites the range of women who have used The Birthplace is that they have all concluded that natural childbirth is what is best for them and for their baby in terms of mother-infant bonding and breastfeeding, Ms Goff said.

“Nature has figured out this process of childbirth very well,” she said.

“Midwives see childbirth as a normal life event,” while physicians are trained to treat disease and intervene medically, she said.

Ms Goff said she expects that the percentage of women who seek natural childbirth with midwives will continue to increase, potentially appealing to as much 10 percent of the US population. The concept of midwifery and natural childbirth as being normal is not as common in the US as in some other parts of the world, she said.

“Clearly there was a need” to create The Birthplace, Ms Goff said, noting that Connecticut was one of the few places in the nation without such facilities. Waterbury, located in west-central Connecticut, is easily accessible from east-west Interstate 84 and north-south Route 8, she said, noting that women who have had babies at The Birthplace have come from areas including Newtown, West Hartford, Fairfield, Trumbull, Stratford, Norwalk, Canton, and Brewster, N.Y.

Sandy Hook Couple

Sharon and Scott Poarch of Forest View Drive in Sandy Hook chose The Birthplace for the birth of their daughter Heidi Noelle on March 23. Ms Poarch said the facility provided for a natural childbirth experience, with the comfort and security of a full range of hospital services close at hand.

“We wanted a natural childbirth experience while still having the hospital available should a medical need arise,” Ms Poarch said.

Paula Cate, a certified nurse-midwife, attended the birth.

The staff at The Birthplace was supportive and encouraging, and the atmosphere was relaxing, Ms Poarch said. “The Birthplace was a wonderful place for a family to have a baby. My children were welcome, comfortable, and accepted, as were their grandparents. It was a really nice family experience. Everybody enjoyed it,” she said. “Basically, it was a wonderful experience… I was in charge… I was able to walk around,” Ms Poarch said.

Having a child at The Birthplace was a much more relaxed experience than having a child in a conventional hospital maternity unit, she said. Ms Poarch gave birth to her other children, ages 5 and 7, at Bridgeport Hospital. Ms Poarch said she would opt to have any future children in a facility such as The Birthplace.

Ms Poarch said her husband, Scott, initially had been skeptical about her having their child in a midwife-directed facility, but he later came to appreciate the experience.