Community member speaks to power and reach of NMBC practice

#birthcentercalltoaction to #SaveTheNurseMidwiferyBirthCenter

With special thanks to Melissa Wilberger, DVM, Lane County Friends of the Birth Center shares the following long version of a letter to the editor she has submitted locally. This letter is one of many actions local supporters of the Nurse Midwifery Birth Center practice are taking to communicate the value and importance of PeaceHealth reversing its plan to close the community's accredited, freestanding birth center which practices in three locations (Charnelton Community Health Clinic, the birth center, and RiverBend hospital). Integrated fully within our local healthcare system, the NMBC provides high quality, low intervention care. This full-spectrum care is supported by international and national imperatives to reverse outcomes - cesarean section, low birth weight, preterm birth, latation challenges - which undermine women and babies. Care at the NMBC serves women throughout their lives, i.e. is not limited to maternity care. Of special importance, too, is that NMBC care is also far (far) more affordable to consumers and insurers. 

See the most recent  Call to Action  for more ideas of how to join this community effort. Lane County Friends of the Birth Center remains committed to working with PeaceHealth leadership to correct course. Unfortunately, our multiple requests to begin this conversation have, so far, been fully dismissed. 

Melissa Wilberger, DVM's letter:

Since hearing of the impending closure of the Nurse Midwifery Birth Center, I have had a lot of firsts.  I’ve been participating in my first protesting of anything.  I’ve attended my first protest rally.  I’ve contacted my elected officials for the first time. My husband thinks I’ve gone crazy and I tell my friends I don’t know what has come over me. I walked into the birth center for a wellness visit (again, another first!) and I was overcome with emotions as I considered this seemingly sacred place being closed. This has led to some introspection.  Why is it important?  You see, I’m done having babies, so you would think I could let it go. 

With my first pregnancy, I was seeing a gynecologist who I was quite comfortable with but didn’t do obstetrics.  I requested a referral to midwifery because I had heard it was a good thing.  He sent me to the Nurse Midwifery Birth Center with a high recommendation.  It was love at first visit.  The midwives I met exhibited compassion, a desire to educate, and a willingness to listen.  The birth center was welcoming and I decided I wanted a birth there, where I wasn’t regulated or given routine, but unnecessary, procedures.  The literature I received didn’t strike my heart with terror, unlike quite a few other obstetrician written books, but instead empowered me with knowledge.  The birth classes were predictably awkward but a foundation for all 3 of my births.  My birth plan failed as I went over 41 weeks and I was induced in the dreaded hospital.  The midwives brought the birth center to me. When my baby came out and was swept away to the NICU, I had the midwife by my side picking out the hope.  

After that first child’s scary start, I consented to my husband’s wishes to have hospital births but midwife-led with most my care at the birth center.  I went into each birth confident because I had a midwife at my side.  My point in sharing my story is to illustrate the birth center and midwives give an empowering, calm, assured experience to allow me to be confident and mentally relaxed during birth.  I was able to focus on what was important.  Never was a procedure done without requesting my consent in a non-threatening way.  Over the years, I’ve also uncovered the many research articles establishing that birth center models of care are the best model for low risk pregnancies to decrease maternal and fetal death.  I now rabidly preach to all my pregnant friends and family to go to the Nurse Midwifery Birth Center or find a Certified Nurse Midwife in their area.

In addition, the lactation care I received was amazing and much needed. I didn’t have to go to a foreign place to get help, it was at the birth center.  I used their care for all 3 babies, the final one being the toughest. Because all their lactation consultants are certified, I was able to get the immediate care I desired for my baby’s surgical procedure to help nursing.  They helped my lactation experience be the best it could be for both me and my babies.

Finally, I was blown away with the quality of care during my wellness visit.  I liked my gynecologist previously but his care was overshadowed.  The midwife not only was thorough in her exam but listened intently to my concerns and addressed them all.  I will be returning to the birth center for all my future gynecologic visits, or I’ll return to my lack of preventative health care.

I want all mothers to have access to this amazing, empowering way of approaching women’s health and birth.  So, in closing, Peacehealth has sent a few requests for the Lane County Friends of the Birth Center to join in a discussion of how to improve in-hospital birth risks and a long term care model.  I would say,”Peacehealth, you have one!  It is the Nurse Midwifery Birth Center!  So, please, stop being lazy and begin looking for more permanent options beyond contracting with an anti-midwifery practice of OB-GYNs who are threatened by the growing birth center model of care.”

Sincerely and with hope of the best outcome,

Melissa Wilberger, DVM