While most hospitals in the United States refer to their maternity care units as birth centers, free-standing birth centers are uniquely different and are designed with you in mind. Our center is one of only approximately 300 free-standing birth centers in the United States, most of which are owned and operated by midwives. Although still small in number, birth centers are growing rapidly around the country: what women most want from the experience of giving birth are hallmarks of care in a birth center. We are very pleased to offer you this unique opportunity to partner with our midwives to achieve the birth experience you are looking for.
If you want to feel supported and cared for, in control of your care and assured that what you want for yourself and your baby will be respected, if you want real information so you can make good choices for you and your baby, we encourage you to choose our birth center for your care. If time during your pregnancy for answers to all of your questions, if the opportunity for you and your midwife to get to know each other and not feel rushed are important to you, if you want to know the person well who will help you give birth and not rely on the luck of the draw for who will attend you on the day of your birth, we encourage you to visit our midwives and explore care with us at our birth center.
The midwives at our birth center know how to make sure that your safety and good health are attended to, while at the same time listening and attending to what it is that you want from your birth experience, what your dreams are for this most special time in your life. We are here to listen and to guide you, to support and care for you, and to partner with you to help you to have the birth you want – for yourself, your baby and your family.
Our midwives understand that the questions you have in pregnancy for yourself and your baby and the quality of your birth experience are the beginning of the journey that will carry you through the experience of raising your child, and we are here to help.
Quality Care
The Monadnock Birth Center is a health care facility licensed by the New Hampshire State Department of Health. It is staffed by midwives who are highly-trained, experienced in birth center care, nationally-certified and licensed by the state. Mary Lawlor, CPM, NHCM, the owner and director of the birth center which first opened in 2008, has over 35 years of experience serving area families. Our midwives are Certified Professional Midwives (CPM), a fast-growing branch of midwives in the United States, trained and credentialed to offer expert care, education, counseling and support to women for pregnancy, birth and the postpartum period, and to provide care for newborns. Although qualified to practice in any setting, they have particular training and expertise in providing care in homes and free-standing birth centers, and own or work in over half of the U.S. today. Care at the birth center may also be provided by Certified Nurse Midwives, the largest branch of midwifery in the U.S.
Comfort and Support
We know from many studies that your feeling of safety, comfort and support during your pregnancy, labor and birth makes a significant difference to your ability to give birth naturally and to move confidently into parenting your child. If you are researching birth centers and midwives, you likely already know, or at least sense strongly, that the physical and emotional environment for your birth and who provides care for you matter a lot. We opened our birth center in what was previously a family home, and we have created a warm, home-like environment for you, your baby and family, and your birth. When women and families tour our birth center, the comment they make most often is that it is calming, quiet, warm and welcoming
Our center is designed for you: it is beautiful, comforting, orderly and clean, quiet, spacious, private, welcoming and supportive. Both the center itself and our program of services are carefully designed to enhance your comfort and to support you, to welcome your partner and loved ones, and to foster and facilitate the natural birth experience you are looking for.
Personal Care and Attention
In an age when prenatal visits typically last only a few minutes, when it is possible that you won’t have met the person who delivers your baby before the day you give birth, and when the provider who cares for you during labor may not be the same person who attends your birth because of a shift change, personal care and attention are hallmarks of birth center care. At the birth center, you will receive the highest-quality personal, individualized care from midwives you will come to know well, and you will have the opportunity to give birth in a way that reflects your values, choices and desires for yourself, your baby and your family. Rather than submitting yourself to the policies and procedures of a hospital, your care will be a true partnership between you and your midwives, with respect for your intuition and knowledge of yourself as the basis for deciding what is right for you and your baby. Your midwives will spend time with you: hour-long prenatal visits, the continuous company of a midwife during your labor and birth, three home-visits in the first week of your new baby’s life, as well as visits for you and your baby at three and six weeks.