About the Women's Health & Birth Center …

At the Women's Health & Birth Center, Women receive excellent family-centered care in the safest, most nurturing environment possible. Our Certified Nurse Midwives--registered nurses with advanced training and board certification in pregnancy, childbirth, and gynecology--offer a more emotionally satisfying experience of pregnancy and childbirth without unnecessary technological intervention. At the WHBC pregnancy is considered a normal condition not an illness, and the midwives devote extra time to education and to accommodating the mother's personal needs and desires.

Projects

The Women's Health & Birth Center is participating in the Milk Bank Program. Through the Eomen's Health and Birth Center, lactating mothers can enroll in a program that saves lives. Our milk banks mission is to collect excess breast milk from qualified donors in the local community and make it available for very low birth weight NICU infants and other critically ill babies. Click to go to the confindential Milk Bank Program interview site/.

Our History …

The Birth Center was founded in 1991 by Rosanne Gephart on the east side of Santa Rosa. Moving into two buildings that were formerly occupied by the Girl Scouts, the WHBC used the front building for receptions, birth and examination rooms, eventually moving classrooms and billing into the back of a third building. In another expansion, the back building was remodeled into two birth rooms and a large bathroom. The large fireplace from the Girl Scout ”lodge“ was preserved in the family room of the Birth Center, serving as a cozy space with plenty of comfortable places to gather.

In the beginning, Rosanne was the Birth Center’s only midwife, with one nurse and one receptionist. As the Center has grown we have added new partners and staff, expanding the practice to three midwives, five nurses, a large office staff, and many contracting professionals [e.g. dietician, childbirth educators, counselors] serving our clients.

The Women's Health & Birth Center was started during a crisis in malpractice coverage. Insurance restrictions meant no certified nurse midwife could attend a home birth and be covered by her insurance. In addition, licensed midwives did not have hospital privileges. Families wanted a certified nurse midwife, with full medical backup, and childbirth in a home-like environment. Because some births are complicated and continuity of care is desirable, women also wanted a midwife who could transfer to and provide care within a hospital setting.

Considered risky at first, numerous studies have shown births attended by licensed, certified midwives at birth centers are not only safe but cost effective as well. The birth center opened doing 1-2 birth center births to 4-5 hospital births. More a decade later, the Center’s midwives attend 60% of births at the center and 40% at the hospital. The majority of the hospital births are families that choose hospital birth or have a complication during pregnancy that requires hospital birth.

Today, the Birth Center has expanded services to include doula services and classes, lactation education for professionals and breastfeeding support for all families, regardless of where their baby was born.

Although the birth center has grown from three employees to 17, the mission, to develop a supportive environment that families need and want in order to be able to birth and breastfeed, has not changed.