Benefits to Families

• The birth center approaches pregnancy and birth as a normal family event
  until proven otherwise. While attending to the possibility that a problem may arise that will require medical intervention or care in the acute care setting of a hospital, the program encourages family intervention and provides a safe environment for families to experience the social, emotional, and spiritual renewal inherent in birthing forth new life.

  This is in opposition to the view that pregnancy is an illness, and that birth is a medical/surgical event that needs to be cured.

• The birth center program of education encourages parents to become informed and self-reliant, and to assume responsibility for their own health and the health of the family.
• The birth center brings generations together to celebrate new life by encouraging grandparents and children to participate in the birth center program.
• Birth centers have demonstrated for 30 years that they are a viable alternative to unattended home birth and to costly hospital acute care. It is now time to mainstream these services.

American Association of Birth Centers