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A warm, safe place to bring your baby into this worldBloomin’ Babies Birth Center is the only hospital-owned, free standing birth center in Grand Junction, CO. Women and their families now have a more natural place to have an unmedicated birth. Request an Appointment
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We recognize birth as a natural, normal part of lifeAt Bloomin’ Babies Birth Center, we believe in partnering with you to ensure that your health care is an empowering experience. Our mission is to provide a safe, home-like environment to women of all ages for their health care needs – from preconception, through pregnancy, and through menopause. Our birth center is:
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We trust in the body and the birth processThe birth center model honors pregnancy and childbirth as a healthy and normal part of life. Bloomin’ Babies offers customized care and many choices to fit your philosophy of low-risk pregnancy and natural birth. Our beautiful birth suites create a spacious home-like environment including a comfortable area for families. From hydrotherapy to alternate methods of pain management, every expectant family can create a birth plan to further personalize their care. Our comprehensive, holistic model of care means that if there’s ever a need to transfer, our midwives are credentialed through St. Mary’s and medical records transfer seamlessly, so there’s no interruption of care. We also have doctors available to consult with 24 hours a day, if something more unexpected comes up. Where you decide to deliver your baby is a big decision. You’re bound to have more questions. We can hopefully answer them here. Meet our midwives
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Frequently Asked QuestionsHow is care at Bloomin' Babies Birth Center different than hospital-based care?At Bloomin' Babies Birth Center, we treat pregnancy, birth and the postpartum period as a normal, healthy part of family life—not an illness! We pride ourselves on giving families information to make informed healthcare decisions. Our prenatal visits are a minimum of 30 minutes, so that your midwives have the chance to get to know you and answer all of your questions. At Bloomin' Babies Birth Center, you are treated as an individual, not a number. Our midwives, nurses, and student nurse-midwives are all highly skilled at supporting families in childbirth and beyond. During labor, you will have constant care from your birth team instead of having someone arriving at the last minute to deliver your baby. This team starts with a midwife and RN that you will know personally after meeting them over the course of your prenatal care. Bloomin' Babies Birth Center has two birth rooms, each with a queen-sized bed and a tub specifically designed for water-birth, with a third room birth room available with a full-sized bed. You are required to drink in labor and eating is encouraged. Positions for labor and birth are not restricted. Your baby will be placed in your arms immediately after birth and we practice delayed physiologic cord clamping as well. Each family receives careful guidance in the first few hours after birth so that when they are discharged between four and six hours after birth (an evidence-based practice), they feel confident their ability to breastfeed and care for both the baby and the birthing parent. Our required prenatal education ensures that families are well educated about the early postpartum period and know how to assess the wellbeing of everyone after birth center discharge. The nurse-midwives and nursing staff closely follow the family at office visits for the first few weeks of the new baby's life. Is this birth center right for me?Birth centers are for healthy pregnant people and healthy babies. A healthy family makes the kind of wellness choices that facilitate successful birth outside the hospital. Birth center care can help families achieve optimum wellness and avoid unnecessary risk. Extensive prenatal screening is in place to ensure that any potential problem is caught early. High risk pregnancies must be referred to delivery facilities with more extensive resources. Based on what we learn of a client's health and circumstance, we can refer them to a provider that will best match their condition and wishes. We do NOT consider age, IVF/ART, or previous pregnancy/birth history to be risk factors. If you have had a Cesarean Section and are interested in a Vaginal Birth After Cesarean (VBAC) you can have your prenatal care at the birth center, and when it is time to deliver, we will follow you to the hospital where we will continue your care. Please call (970) 822-0660 for more details. If you're currently with another provider for your prenatal care but are considering a transfer to the birth center, please contact us as soon as possible. This allows time for medical records to be transferred and for you to meet all of our midwives and understand our model of care. This also allows time for us to bond with you. If you would like to use the Bloomin' Babies Birth Center but are unsure whether it is the right place for you, feel free to contact us and consider coming to a prospective client orientation, which can be done by calling (970) 822-0660. Can I transfer care to Bloomin' Babies for my pregnany?Yes, Bloomin’ Babies Birth Center does accept transfers of care! Prospective families need to attend an orientation, classes and provide upfront payment. Upfront payment of your estimated client responsibility for professional and facility fees is required by 32 weeks of gestation unless other arrangements are made with the business manager. Why do we have educational and payment requirements?In short - for safety and increased success. We need to ensure you are a good candidate for out-of-hospital birth and that you and your family/partner/support are well prepared. We also want you to spend time with our whole team so you have confidence in the midwife at your birth. Why Certified Nurse-Midwives?Certified Nurse-Midwives are experts in the care of uncomplicated pregnancy and birth. We are highly-skilled at caring for families in the birth center environment, where healthy clients experiencing normal pregnancies can safely deliver with far less technology and intervention than is needed in the hospital for those with risk factors complicating their pregnancies. Our Certified Nurse-Midwives provide continuous support during labor and birth. Studies have shown that continuous labor support decreases the need for epidural anesthesia, medical interventions and cesarean sections. Certified Nurse-Midwives typically spend three times longer with their clients than do physicians. This allows ample time for developing the relationship most people desire with their health care-provider. The partnership that unfolds with our midwives will help you to stay healthy throughout pregnancy. What if a transfer to the hospital is necessary?National statistics have been maintained on birth center outcomes for over 20 years, and it has been demonstrated that virtually all clients who transfer to the hospital do so on a non-emergency basis (typically for labor stimulating hormones or epidural analgesia). However, if an emergency transfer to the hospital during labor is necessary, this trip takes less than 15 minutes by ambulance, putting us well within a 30 minute "decision to incision" standard for Cesarean section that most hospitals strive to achieve. This emergency responsiveness is better than that provided by many rural hospitals. Our style of care facilitates a smooth transition to the hospital and we stay involved through your baby's birth. In the event of a transfer, our involvement with your care does not stop - it becomes collaborative in nature. If the midwife cannot be physically present, after the hospital transition and care plan are long over, we remain available via the on-call midwife and of course as a complete practice during office hours. We feel confident our transfer model works well and our statistics support us. St. Mary's, our hopstial partner, does not treat our transferred patients as emergencies. As less than half of our intrapartum (during labor) transfers result in a Cesarean surgical delivery (under 5% C-section rate), we can see that our involvement in the care plan for the client (sharing records and consulting with the physicians, midwives and nurses) leads to wider range of response than just an "emergency C-Section." The majority of our transferred families choose to have their postpartum care done at Bloomin’ Babies, which speaks to the trust placed in our birth center by the hospital physicians and the real continuity of care patients see with the hospital care teams. How are staffing needs met when several women deliver at the same tinme??Two-to-three clinical staff members are present at every birth at the Bloomin' Babies Birth Center, including one or more CNMs. Additional staff are called in for multiple moms in labor. How do you handle the after-care needs of your clients?A CNM is on call at all times. What is the average length of stay for families that deliver at the Birth Center?Nine-to-12 hours total, with four-to-six of those hours in the postpartum period. What about the care of the newborn? Do you provide these services as well?Yes. Certified Nurse-Midwifes are licensed to provide newborn care. We work closely with area pediatricians and family physicians to provide continuity of care. Bloomin' Babies Birth Center offers all standard testing and treatments commonly offered to newborns in the first two weeks of your infant's life. What if I live a distance from the Birth Center and go into early labor and the weather is bad, for example, snowing?The birth center has a corporate rate at a nearby hotel where you could go until your labor progressed to the stage of being admitted to the birth center. |