September 22,1999

Media Contact: Kate Deely 619/543-6163

HAVE IT YOUR WAY: UCSD HEALTHCARE DELIVERS WITH MIDWIVES

UCSD Healthcare announces the opening of a new family-centered birthing unit called The Birth Center at UCSD Medical Center where pregnant women and their families can go through the birthing experience assisted by a Certified Nurse Midwife.

At the Birth Center at UCSD, healthy pregnant women receive personalized care and support during their labor, and deliver their babies with the help of a CNM, nurses and doulas. Additionally, since it is a birthing unit within a hospital, women have immediate access to expert obstetrician and pediatrician involvement if there is a need or desire.

“With The Birth Center at UCSD, we are offering the comfort of a home birthing experience in a hospital that has all the newest technology and medical professionals,“ said Linda Levy, R.N., director of Women and Infant Services at UCSD. “Offering a midwife service in a hospital is a more integrated patient-oriented setting than at home or in a free-standing birthing center.  Here, at The Birth Center at UCSD, we provide an experience focusing on the family in a relaxed, homelike setting.”

 The Birth Center at UCSD was established in response to women’s desire for such an option, Levy said.  “Some pregnant women want the support and care of a certified nurse-midwife who focuses largely on the normal experience of pregnancy,” Levy said. 

“As long as their bodies and babies behave, a woman can deliver her baby without any medical intervention,” Levy said. “However, there is first-quality, full-spectrum medical support nearby, should it be desired or needed.”

For example, she said, there are women who want a midwife but also want an epidural, a procedure that must be done by an anesthesiologist.

“Also, in the rare case a woman desiring a midwife-assisted delivery develops a complication during labor, a physician is always available in our more traditional Labor and Delivery suite,” Levy added. “In this situation a midwife/physician collaborative delivery can be performed.”

With its comprehensive maternal and fetal clinical care and research center, UCSD Medical Center, Hillcrest has the expertise and technology to provide state-of-the-art care for various complications in pregnancy and delivery, Levy said. As a community partner, it also has the desire to offer a service to women to make their pregnancy the best possible experience, she added.

Aside from having the expertise of a midwife and medical care readily available, it is important to many women to have loved ones nearby during labor. 

“Ultimately The Birth Center at UCSD is offering family-centered care,” Levy said. “ A woman delivering at The Birth Center at UCSD has family members and others she has chosen for support during the birth of her child in her room throughout the delivery. This family-centered care continues after the birth, keeping mother, baby and family together at all times while in the hospital.”

The Birth Center, on the hospital’s fourth floor, includes five spacious suites which, along with the necessary equipment required for a delivery, have a queen or full-size bed, a rocking chair and plenty of room for the family for a homelike atmosphere.

The Birth Center at UCSD experience begins long before the due date, Levy said. Throughout a woman’s pregnancy, she is regularly meeting with a Birth Center  midwife. “The midwife takes the lead on providing and coordinating care through a woman’s pregnancy and delivery, with physician consultation and intervention as required. Throughout the pregnancy, midwives focus largely on the educational and normal experience of pregnancy,” Levy said.

A woman delivering at The Birth Center at UCSD has access to a health care team made up of health and childbirth educators, a CNM, nutritionists, obstetricians and pediatricians. The Birth Center at UCSD was developed as a collaborative between UCSD and midwives from The BirthPlace, a freestanding birth center formerly located in Hillcrest and whose midwives have delivered more than 4,000 babies.