HOW DO BIRTH CENTERS AND HOSPITALS WORK TOGETHER?
Hospitals work in tandem with birthing centers and licensed midwives to provide the best stratified maternity care in all stages of pregnancy including referral, collaboration and clinical integration among family medicine, obstetricians, laborists, maternal fetal medicine, pediatricians and neonatologists. Birthing centers are recognized as a first basic level of maternity care for expectant low risk women, as published in the Joint Statement by ACOG and SMFM. Birthing centers affiliate with hospitals for seamless transfer of mom in the event she needs higher medical attention.
There is a movement of low risk expectant people looking for a birth experience that has minimal interventions and allows shared decision making. Moms with low-risk pregnancies who plan to deliver in a licensed birth center are less likely to undergo interventions, such as operative deliveries and episiotomies and can avoid high rates of cesarean section.
Nationally, about 20 licensed birthing centers are owned by or affiliated with hospitals. Eleven have opened since 2013. About half of the affiliated birthing centers are located on a separate floor or wing from the hospital's regular labor and delivery unit while the remaining birth centers are in separate facilities away from the hospital.
Hospitals that partner with birth centers are known to experience the benefits of increased revenue and improved public relations. When hospitals partner with a free standing birth center, whether collaboratively or through a joint venture, hospitals are extending the range of quality maternity services available to the community.
For more information on hospitals partnering with birth centers, or AMU units (alongside maternaity units ) accredited by CABC, the accreditation standard for birth center best practices, reach out to IHW.