County Closes Prenatal Clinic; New Birth Center Needed
Closure of County Prenatal Clinic underscores need for autonomous, nonprofit birth center
Español: Comunicado: Cambios en el cuidado prenatal en el condado de Lane, febrero 2021
Lane County, OR – February 2021 – Community Health Centers of Lane County closed its Prenatal Clinic at the end of January. This clinic primarily provided Medicaid and uninsured clients with prenatal and postpartum midwifery care at the Charnelton Health Clinic (CHC) in downtown Eugene. Before the closure, pregnant people in Lane County often chose the Prenatal Clinic because of its wrap around services, easy access to care without discrimination, and integrated Spanish speaking staff throughout the clinic. The Prenatal Clinic recently transferred all clients’ care to private practices in the area. The closure of the Prenatal Clinic is a significant loss of health care access and support for our community.
What will be lost as a result of the CHC Prenatal Clinic closure?
A prenatal care safety net, more specifically, a clinic that doesn’t “fire” clients for missing appointments or not paying bills.
Integrated Spanish-speaking staff throughout services including a Spanish-speaking lactation consultant and care coordinator.
Prenatal care integrated with other Lane County services such as primary care, mental health care, and WIC.
María Paz Aguirre, Latinx community member and facilitator of Our Community Birth Center’s recent Latinx focus group, says “There’s a real need of services in our native language. We prefer to have services in our native language because interpreters are not always the best. In hospitals and clinics we have seen that information in our native language is not always easy to find. Right now there’s almost no places where you can find that. Thinking about Our Community Birth Center, it is a place that can do that.”
Our Community Birth Center is developing an equitable and inclusive nonprofit community clinic that provides perinatal and general health care for people in Lane County. Our community needs and deserves accessible nonprofit community-based health care for pregnancy, birth, and beyond. The closure of the only Federally Qualified Health Center providing prenatal care in the Eugene-Springfield area makes this need more urgent, and Our Community Birth Center will fill the gap in care that was created when the PeaceHealth Nurse Midwifery Birth Center closed in 2019, and which has now widened significantly as a result of the Lane County Prenatal Clinic closure.
Birth center care is proven to contribute to improved outcomes for parents and babies. These outcomes include: lower rates of cesarean birth and higher rates of healthy normal birth; lower rates of preterm birth and low birth weight babies; increased lactation success; high client satisfaction; and significantly lower costs to the health care system (Strong Start for Mothers and Newborns, 2018). Our Community Birth Center’s programs specialize in care of the childbearing person, and include pregnancy counseling, newborn care, lactation services, women’s and family health care, LGBTQIA+ health care, family planning, childbirth and lactation classes, peer support, and postpartum home-visits.
In addition, Our Community Birth Center will integrate Spanish-speaking staff, access to language interpretation, and support for those who do not have insurance or cannot afford to pay for care. Our Community Birth Center also has plans to add primary care services to ensure wrap around care and support for pregnancy and beyond.
"All of the midwives I had the honor to be treated by gave me the courage to trust my own body and ultimately they played an essential role in my ability to achieve a healthy, all natural birthing outcome. When I think about my daughter’s birth I don’t remember the pain. Instead, I remember the support I felt. I remember progressing through the experience on my own terms. I strongly feel that Our Community Birth Center will pick up where the CHC Prenatal Clinic and the PeaceHealth Nurse Midwifery Birth Center left off and be able provide this much needed level of patient-centered care to future expecting mothers,” Ren McLemore, Prenatal Clinic and Birth Center parent and Lane County Friends of the Birth Center board member.
Do you have questions about prenatal health care options in Lane County? Our Community Birth Center offers free health care options counseling in Spanish and English. Contact us at OurCommunityBirthCenter@gmail.com to ask a question or schedule a phone call.
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