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BIRTH STORIES BY MOMS
Maria
By
Michelle Sheldone
Andrea Werder of Westin gave birth to her fourth child, Maria, in a spa tub on Miami Beach.
The 37-year-old was offered this means of enhancing relaxation and reducing pain by Miami Beach Maternity Care, one of several birth centers throughout the state that are staffed by registered nurses and midwives. Non-ambulatory and designed for uncomplicated, low-risk pregnancies and natural deliveries, birth centers offer such services as prenatal and postpartum care, laboratory and diagnostic testing and pap smears. Educational programs are also offered, and caregivers are trained to provide emergency care if needed, with transfers to nearby hospitals supplied when necessary.
Birth centers have existed in America since the 1970s, and Florida began licensing them in 1984. Sandra Williamson, founder of Special Beginnings Birth Center in Orlando, describes them as "high touch, low tech" and an "adaptation of the home" rather than a hospital.
"A lot of the information that's been given to women is that having a baby is risky, that they're going to be out of control," said Williamson. "So the idea of an epidural, painless childbirth has become the expectation of a lot of women these days. They've forgotten that their bodies are biologically coded to give birth and that God did not make a mistake."
Added Ann Richter, president of the Tampa-based Florida Alliance of Birth Centers: "People who choose birth centers really have the opportunity to plan their deliveries without a lot of medical intervention. Birth is a very sacred time, and our society has 'medicalized' it. Mothers need to have good health care available, but they also need to remember what a special time it is by having the family together."
When Holly Dinsbeer, a 26-year-old Orange Park nurse, gave birth to her second son, Aidan, at Special Beginnings, her husband, David, took on an active role.
"He was able to deliver the baby in the birth center with the midwife's hands on top of his, and he was so proud of that," she said. "He really felt like he contributed a lot."
According to Sandra Williamson, birth center deliveries can empower women as well.
"Their self-esteem goes up," she said, "and they find that if they can go through labor, they can take on being a mom, which is a hard job."
Where Special Beginnings can accommodate up to 30 births at any given time, Miami Beach Maternity Care maintains a birthing capacity of 25, and costs extend up to $3,500. The Miami Beach center accepts health insurance and works on sliding scale payment plans, said president Shari Daniels.
Still, Ann Richter noted that some insurance companies fail to cover birth centers as fully or in as timely a manner as they do larger hospitals. With a membership of some 15 birth centers throughout the state, Richter said, the alliance addresses such barriers to care as well as works with legislation and promotes and supports birth centers.
But birth centers aren't for everyone -- not even the lowest risk pregnant woman. Most birth centers are unable to accommodate women who have had cesarians in the past, said Holly Dinsbeer, and if being in a birth center makes a woman anxious about giving birth, she will counteract the benefits the center offers.
"Some
people do not feel comfortable not being in the same building as
an operating room or in the same building as advanced emergency
equipment," she noted. "Birth centers have standard but
not intensive care emergency equipment. And lack of knowledge causes
a fear of the unknown, which is the biggest hindrance to childbirth.
That can hinder the birth experience anywhere."