After a hefty amount of research, thought, and prayer we’ve chosen our birth place, Roots Community Birth Center. Roots is located in the heart of North Minneapolis, just a few blocks down from H White Men’s Room– barbershop, boutique, community center, and dear to my heart. Roots is piloted by a fantastic midwife, Rebecca, and is providing excellent care to an otherwise totally unserved population. During my doula training I kept hearing the name Roots come up over and over again. I love that they are also housing a team of home birth midwives, North Star Midwifery 🙂
Throughout the research process, I considered the following places to birth:
Willow Birth Center
HCMC with their midwives
and of course, Roots.
I also toured Minnesota Birth Center {which I was unimpressed by for a variety of reasons}. I’m also familiar with The Mother Baby Center brand, so did not feel it necessary to tour any of their locations. I heard excellent things about Health Foundations birth center, but since we are in Minneapolis I opted for finding care closer to our home. I also think the midwives at Methodist are doing great work and recommend them to doula clients.
Why a birth center?
I based my decision first and foremost on cesarean rates. My goal is to avoid a c-section, and I believe choosing a birth center protects me from that as much as possible. As I shared in an earlier post, women of color must add an increase of 5% onto any c-section rate reported. Obviously, some cesareans are necessary, but I believe many are preformed unnecessarily. I also opted for an out-of-hospital birth because of the infant and maternal mortality rates in the United States. Compared to other developed nations our stats disturbing. Even more so for women of color. Some helpful articles can be found here and here. Serena Williams’ story was especially frightening to me. Every traumatic birth story I know took place in a hospital.
Are birth centers safe?
I’m not a doctor or midwife. Birth unfortunately can be a dangerous event.
I feel safe at a birth center. As a “low risk” patient {at this point} I have the privilege of choosing a birth center.
I understand there are risks to birthing out of hospital.
What happens if you need to transfer?
Most transfers from a birth center are not emergent. That being said, Roots has a reputable relationship with several hospitals. They even offer midwife to midwife transfer at HCMC, which makes me really happy.
What is the care like?
Umm…. amazing! Midwife care feels more personalized to me, and the appointments at Roots are at least an hour long. I will get to know each midwife during my prenatal time, and thus I will know the woman delivering our baby well. The care feels personalized, progressive, and caring. For the very first time in my entire life I had a care provider go over each piece of paperwork and form one by one. I was looked at in the eye. I felt known.
Is it covered by insurance?
In Minnesota, under most insurance groups you are entitled to birth at a birth center. Sometimes you need to call and be sure your specific group covers the birth center of your choice. Birth center births are less expensive than in-hospital births at large.
………
There we go, that’s why I chose Roots. I’m excited to share more about my experiences there and ultimately our babe’s birth!
