What are the Benefits to Business and Industry?
- Birth centers offer business- and industry- direct savings in the cost of health benefits. If even 10 percent (400,000) of the 4 million women who give birth in the U.S. each year delivered their babies in birth centers, the savings in facility fee payments alone would be at least $2.6 billion. 2, 3
- The birth center program provides a starting base for the wellness and prevention programs being established in the industry.
- The family is the hinge-pin of the employee. Industry's support of a program that encourages family unity, self-determination, and responsible
health can only improve employee performance. - Birth center care encourages childbearing women, who may also be employees, to be confident in the design of their bodies. Such confidence, in turn, builds self-esteem and starts the young family off on thinking of pregnancy, birth, and family health as wellness, not disease. The nine-month intensive focus on improving family health through the promotion of lifestyle changes during pregnancy can have a significant ripple effect in the long-term improvement of family health.
Advice from a Founding Mother
"Hold closely and tightly to your mission. I encourage you to think through carefully the overtures you receive, neither abandoning your principles as you experience the joy and relief of being courted by those who a few short years ago shunned you, nor digging in your heels in fear of being 'eaten alive.'"
-Ruth Watson Lubic, CNM, EdD.