October 1, 1999
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.
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.
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