She is trying to open a birth center near the motherhood desert. It is not easy

She is trying to open a birth center near the motherhood desert. It is not easy

 She is trying to open a birth center near the motherhood desert. It is not easy

?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F84%2F7b%2Fded567a6414e836745f1b04e4568%2F20250628-birth-00987-1 She is trying to open a birth center near the motherhood desert. It is not easy
Katie Chop, a community organization, stands in an empty place in Augusta, Georgia, where she was trying to open a six -year birth center. She says that the lack of cooperation from local hospitals was an essential obstacle.
Kendrick Brinson/for NPR

Katie Chubb stands in front of an empty place in the afternoon in Georgia Heat, and rises to the place where you are trying to open a six -year birth center.

“We had a car park along the road,” she says, describing her vision of a place that would provide a more similar alternative to the home of the hospital.

Chubb is a community organizer in a state with some of The highest mother rates and Infant mortality In the country. She says that there is an urgent need that the birth center is required here – Augusta, Georgia, surrounded Mother’s health care desert, When it is difficult to find pregnancy care and a few alternatives are found outside hospitals.

Seeing it is for a self -standing clinic that employs most of the midwives and works in partnership with obstetricians.

But despite community support on a large scale and even investment offers, Chubb faced an obstacle after an obstacle to its mission to provide more safe birth options for women.

Childbirth in the United States can be dangerous

The Trump administration called on the Americans To have more children. But the defenders were warning for years that the mother and infant High death rates In the United States, show the severity of birth. Lack of confidence Medical institutions and hospitals It also grows throughout the country. Some people want more options.

When Claresa Vins was pregnant, she did not want to have her child in the hospital. She was concerned that doctors would press her in a Caesarean section or drugs to accelerate labor. Vens was a previous birth at home and at the birth center in Alaska, where she was living." You are better at the birth center, "One says." The child is better because they are more relaxed at birth. They immediately get the skin’s contact immediately. They do not develop bright lights, "She says.

With no similar center in Ugusta, Venz decided to give birth at home. When things began to go badly, I went to the hospital, but it was too late.

Her child was born in the car.

As you say, he suffered from Rope This causes the child’s brain to be deprived of oxygen – and her son suffered from a brain injury.

He returned home from the hospital with the industrial respiratory and the feeding tube. Vens says that doctors still have a 18 -month diagnosis.

In the past, she says, she would have made various decisions." But there is only one way to go and this forward from here." She and her husband are planning to have more children, and Vins says she still does not want to go to the hospital next. She was gone happy to the birth center, and she hoped that she had gone to one of her son’s birth.

“If we have a birth center, it will change its results,” says Venz.

Birth centers are still not common in the United States

There are about 400 birth centers throughout the United States in more than 40 states, according to L. The American League of birth centers. Although it is still relatively rare, demand grows throughout the country in recent years on these centers, which can provide a safe alternative to hospitals, for low -risk pregnancy.

Katie Chop wanted to find a birth center when she was pregnant, but there was no one near. Therefore, she led more than two hours to have her son. In recognition of the need, it formed its own organization, and obtained an agreement to transport an ambulance, and the doctor of its partnership with it, and even went to the point of success. Defender of a change in the Georgia LawAllow the birth centers to open without permission from local hospitals.

However, birth centers require partnerships with hospitals and obstetricians in order to transport patients when necessary.

Hospitals will not cooperate

Chubb says hospitals do not want to give up possible revenues by handing patients to the birth center. “They put their profits on the needs of patients,” she says.

None of the three hospitals in Ugusta responded to the interview requests, although one hospital – part of the largest Wellstar Health System – I issued a statement via e -mail, which he said they are providing “full women’s health services”.

Augusta is not Society only For battle with local hospitals. Similar conflicts to open the birth centers in states, including Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky and Iowa.

Another reason for resistance is anxiety about misconduct. Gynecologists probably To prosecute from other types of specialists, he says Andrea PradinThe obstetrician who works in Atlanta with both midwives and hospitals.

"This is really unfortunate, but this is where a lot of resistance comes from," She says. Pradin does not participate in the efforts to open a birth center in Ugusta.

She says that obstetricians often do not want in partnership with midwives for fear of handing over patients who are already suffering from the crisis and may lead to a misconduct. She says, “Gynecologists who have really high behavior rates end up to a commitment,” she says. The American Medical Association says ob-Gyns Average of 162 claims responsibility For every 100 doctors.

Periodic pregnancy is not generally considered good candidates for the connections of the birth center.

For black women, a unique group of concerns

?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Ff9%2F22%2F396d97184e0180daacc2811aaaa9%2Fimg-1636 She is trying to open a birth center near the motherhood desert. It is not easy
Junkit Sanders White witnessed health pregnancy, until the birth of her fourth child. After birth, she suffered from postpartum bleeding, one of the main causes of mother deaths.
Sanders white family

More birth Dangerous for black womenThree more vulnerable than the causes related to pregnancy than white women, According to the Center for Anti -Tennis and Combating. Contrast Worse worse In recent years.

Jonquette SANDERS-WITE She went to the hospital two years ago in labor with her fourth child. The child was fine, but Sanders White was both Caesarean section and hysterectomy. She recalls that her stomach “after hours of surgery was” blowing more than a second. “

It was bleeding. Doctors and nurses had missed them. Postpartum bleeding is one of The main reasons From the mother’s deaths.

She remembers: “All I remember,” is that the nurses and doctors rush to my room and that they scream, scream and say, that they were shattered. She destroys her, and she dies. She dies! “

She remembers her husband, Treston White, a nurse coming to tell him “He didn’t look good”, and “to be ready to tell her goodbye.”

White says he did not believe the nurse and instead chose the prayer. He did not think that God would take his wife. “I had no doubt at all,” he says.

Although Sander-Lhite did this, she is now sued the hospital and practiced the surgeons who were working on it. The complaint claims that she is still suffering from serious complications from this event after two years. NPR communicates with lawyers for doctors and the hospital and did not hear. Medical records listed in the legal complaint show that they were bleeding on the day of birth.

In thinking about this event, Sanders White says one of the many annoying things that day is that she has not interacted with a color employee.

“I think if you are another race, they were proactive,” she says. “Fast a little faster in response to wait until I crash and die.”

Sanders White says her experience showed her that hospitals are not necessarily the safest place. She believes that the best -thinking worker was fully more attention to her needs and prevented her from the near tragedy. “We completely need options outside hospital,” she says. “My eyes are open now.”

They are the stories of such as Katie Chop to continue fighting for her birth center. She says she gets weekly calls from people asking when he will be open.

Chubb grew up in the UK, where the births attended by midwives are more common. She moved to Augusta after her husband now met her on vacation to the United States saying that she never imagined that this would be her life, but she says she believes that her external perspective is helping."It makes me see the amount of injustice and inequality in the American health care system,"She says.

“Especially with the lack of independence of the patient,” and options.

Copyright 2025, NPR

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