Freestanding Birth Centers: Innovation, Evidence, Optimal Outcomes

Written for graduate students and professionals in the fields of midwifery, women's health, and public health, this book explores the freestanding birth center model in the United States from its conception by pioneering midwives and others in the early 1970s through the present day. Compared to the hospital-based birth model, the freestanding birth center offers a better documented, healthier, more cost-effective, and more humane way to care for women and newborns, consistent with the goals of health care legislation. This rapidly expanding model of care has many positive implications for high-quality, individualized care and birth outcomes across the United States.

Written by U.S. leaders in midwifery, Freestanding Birth Centers: Innovation, Evidence, Optimal Outcomes offers a comprehensive guide to the evolving role of birth centers, clinical and cost outcomes, regulatory and legal issues, provider and accreditation issues, and the future of the birth center model. Woven throughout the text are descriptions of "exemplar" birth centers, representing diverse geographical, business, and service models. These cases illustrate the possibilities for expansion and replication of this model of care.

Key Features

• Provides a thorough history of the birth center movement from its inception through future expansion of the model
• Serves as an essential resource with up-to-date evidence on clinical and cost outcomes
• Includes case studies linking the unique service focus of individual birth centers to the associated sections of the book
• Provides practical and comprehensive coverage of all issues involved in implementing and operating a U.S. birth center

Linda J. Cole, DNP, CNM, has spent most of her professional life in full-scope practice at a freestanding birth center, Lisa Ross Birth and Women's Center in Knoxville, Tennessee. Dr. Cole joined Frontier Nursing University in 2012 as an assistant professor in the Department of Midwifery and Women's Health.

Melissa D. Avery, PhD, CNM, FACNM, FAAN, is a professor in the School of Nursing, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and directs the nurse-midwifery education program there.