FAQ

Answers to your most important questions

Q: How is care at Bloomin' Babies Birth Center different than hospital-based care?

A: At Bloomin' Babies Birth Center, we treat pregnancy, birth and the postpartum period as a normal, healthy part of family life—not an illness! We pride ourselves on giving families information to make informed healthcare decisions. Our prenatal visits are a minimum of 30 minutes, so that your midwives have the chance to get to know you and answer all of your questions. At Bloomin' Babies Birth Center, you are treated as an individual, not a number.

Our midwives, nurses, and student nurse-midwives are all highly skilled at supporting families in childbirth and beyond. During labor, you will have constant care from your birth team instead of having someone arriving at the last minute to deliver your baby. This team starts with an BBBC midwife and RN that you will know personally after meeting them over the course of your prenatal care. 

Bloomin' Babies Birth Center has two birth rooms, each with a queen sized bed and a tub specifically designed for water-birth (not a hotel type tub), with a third room birth room available with a full sized bed. You are required to drink in labor and eating is encouraged. Positions for labor and birth are not restricted. Your baby will be placed in your arms immediately after birth and we practice delayed physiologic cord clamping as well.

Each family receives careful guidance in the first few hours after birth so that when they are discharged between four and six hours after birth (an evidence-based practice), they feel confident their ability to breastfeed and care for both the baby and the birthing parent. Our required prenatal education ensures that families are well educated about the early postpartum period and know how to assess the well being of everyone after birth center discharge. The nurse-midwives and nursing staff closely follow the family at office visits for the first few weeks of the new baby's life.

Q: Is the birth center right for me?

A: Birth centers are for healthy pregnant people and healthy babies. A healthy family makes the kind of wellness choices that facilitate successful birth outside the hospital. Bloomin' Babies Birth Center (BBBC) care can help the birthing family achieve optimum wellness and avoid unnecessary risk. Extensive prenatal screening is in place to ensure that any potential problem is caught early.

High risk pregnancies must be referred to delivery facilities with more extensive resources. Based on what we learn of a client's health and circumstance, we can refer them to a provider that will best match their condition and wishes.

We do NOT consider age, IVF/ART, or previous pregnancy/birth history to be risk factors.

If you have had a Cesarean Section and are interested in a Vaginal Birth After Cesarean (VBAC) you can have your prenatal care at the birth center, and when it is time to deliver, we will follow you to the hospital where we will continue your care. Please call 970-549-1711 for more details.

If you're currently with another provider for your prenatal care but are considering a transfer to BBBC, please contact us as soon as possible. This allows time for medical records to be transferred and for you to meet all of our midwives and understand our model of care. This also allows time for us to bond with you. 

If you would like to use the Bloomin' Babies Birth Center but are unsure whether it is the right place for you, feel free to contact us and consider coming to a prospective client orientation, which can be done by calling 970-549-1711.

Q: Can I transfer care to BBBC for my pregnancy? How does that work?

A: Yes, BBBC does accept transfers of care!

Prospective families need to fulfill these requirements:

• Attend an Orientation.
• First-time parents are required to take a natural childbirth education class, breastfeeding class.
• Upfront payment, by 32 weeks gestation, of your estimated client responsibility for professional and facility fees / claims unless other arrangements are made with the business manager.

Why do we have these requirements? In short - for safety and increased success. We need to ensure you are a good candidate for out-of-hospital birth and that you and your family/partner/support are well prepared. We also want you to spend time with our whole team so you have confidence in the midwife at your birth.

Q: Why Certified Nurse Midwives?

A: Certified Nurse-Midwives are experts in the care of uncomplicated pregnancy and birth. We are highly-skilled at caring for families in the birth center environment, where healthy clients experiencing normal pregnancies can safely deliver with far less technology and intervention than is needed in the hospital for those with risk factors complicating their pregnancies.

Our Certified Nurse-Midwives provide continuous support during labor and birth. Studies have shown that continuous labor support decreases the need for epidural anesthesia, medical interventions and cesarean sections. Certified Nurse-Midwives typically spend three times longer with their clients than do physicians. This allows ample time for developing the relationship most people desire with their health care-provider. The partnership that unfolds with our midwives will help you to stay healthy throughout pregnancy.

Q: What if a transfer to the hospital is necessary?

A: National statistics have been maintained on birth center outcomes for over 20 years, and it has been demonstrated that virtually all clients who transfer to the hospital do so on a non-emergency basis (typically for labor stimulating hormones or epidural analgesia). However, if an emergency transfer to the hospital during labor is necessary, this trip takes less than 15 minutes by ambulance, putting us well within a 30 minute "decision to incision" standard for Cesarean section that most hospitals strive to achieve. This emergency responsiveness is better than that provided by many rural hospitals.

Our style of care facilitates a smooth transition to the hospital and we stay involved through your baby's birth. In the event of a transfer, our involvement with your care does not stop - it becomes collaborative in nature. If the midwife cannot be physically present, after the hospital transition and care plan are long over, we remain available via the on-call midwife and of course as a complete practice during office hours.

We feel confident our transfer model works well. Our statistics support us. Hospitals in the area, and especially St. Mary's Medical Center, don't treat our transferred patients as emergencies. As less than half of our intrapartum (during labor) transfers result in a Cesarean surgical delivery (under 5% C-section rate), we can see that our involvement in the care plan for the client (sharing records and consulting with the physicians, midwives and nurses) leads to wider range of response than just an "emergency C-Section." Also, the majority of our transferred families choose to have their postpartum care done at BBBC, which speaks to the trust placed in BBBC by the hospital physicians and the real continuity of care patients see BBBC achieving with the hospital care teams.

Q: What is your ratio of staff to patients? How are staffing needs met when several women deliver at the same time?

A: 2-3 clinical staff members are present at every birth at the Bloomin' Babies Birth Center, including one or more CNMs. Additional staff are called in for multiple moms in labor.

Q: How do you handle the after care needs of your clients?

A: A CNM is on call at all times.

Q: What is the average length of stay for families that deliver at the Birth Center? 

A: 9-12 hours total, with 4-6 of those hours in the postpartum period.

Q: What about the care of the newborn? Do you provide these services as well?

A: Yes, Certified Nurse-Midwifes are licensed to provide newborn care. We work closely with area pediatricians and family physicians to provide continuity of care. Bloomin' Babies Birth Center offers all standard testing and treatments commonly offered to newborns in the first two weeks of your infant's life.

Q: What if I live a distance from the Birth Center and go into early labor and the weather is bad, for example, snowing? 

A: The birth center has a corporate rate at a nearby hotel where you could go until your labor progressed to the stage of being admitted to the birth center.

Have more questions? We'd be happy to answer them with a phone call or during your tour.