AREA TOWNS – In the wake of the closure of Copley Hospital’s Birthing Center this past November, many of the nurse-midwives from the hospital have continued their efforts to provide perinatal care to area parents, with the establishment of the nonprofit organization, Green Mountain Birthing Center (GMBC).
Former Copley employee, Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN), founder, president and co-executive director Erinn Mandeville shared updates on the new center and the staff’s efforts to provide a third option, other than a hospital delivery or home birth, for area parents .
Mandeville is a founding member of the Vermont Birth Center Coalition and has spent many years advocating for birth center legislation in Vermont. She is also the vice president of the Vermont affiliate of the American College of Nurse Midwives.
“So ultimately, GMBC’s aim is to open Vermont’s first freestanding birth center in Waterbury. We are hoping to do this by 2028,” Mandeville revealed. The funds, as well as the requisite real estate will take some time. Whether they purchase then renovate, or build new, is still to be determined.
In the meantime staff will begin to see patients in their Morrisville clinic, located at the WING center. While not the main body of WING center, as it has a lot of other programming, the GMBC has a clinic with a separate entrance at the backside of the building.
The center will be offering prenatal and postpartum care to people, “We won’t be catching babies at the WING center. We won’t be doing births quite yet,” Mandeville explained, “The idea is that people who are left without obstetric services in Lamoille County and the surrounding areas, will be able to get care with us to save them the drive to Burlington or Central Vermont Medical Center or St. Johnsbury, wherever their birthplace of choice is.”
The center can provide the majority of patient, personalized care, Mandeville says, with the midwifery model as well as saving parents the drive. They are credentialed with Medicaid, and three other major private insurers at the moment, with others underway.
The provided care includes but is not limited to OBGYN care, like contraception, preventive care annual exams and general gynecological and reproductive midwifery care as well.
A midwife for two decades, Mandeville was employed at Copley for five years, before they closed their obstetric services and subsequently let all the staff go. She began as a home birth midwife, also working in freestanding birthing centers as well as high-volume hospitals in Boston.
“I’m really excited. We realize that the birthing center won’t replace Copley. We are not a hospital. We won’t be offering C-sections. We will be taking low-risk patients. But I’m very excited that Vermonter’s will now have this third option. It’s an alternative to home or hospital, it’s the third option that Vermonters haven’t had access to yet.”
However, Mandeville says there is much work to be done in the state to make maternity care accessible to all people and prevent hospital closures. This statement proves accurate in the wake of leadership at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital (BMH) recently announcing they would be closing the BMH birthing center due to financial challenges.
Vermont Representative Becca Balint commented on the closure, saying “The prospect of closing this resource in Brattleboro is heartbreaking for families across southern Vermont. Both of my kids were born at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital, and my family received exceptional care there, an experience every Vermont family deserves to have close to home. No one should have to travel farther or face more uncertainty to access safe, high-quality care during one of the most important moments of their lives. This is another painful reminder that our rural health care system is under enormous strain, and the reckless cuts Republicans are making to Medicaid will only make it harder for our rural hospitals to keep their doors open.”
With Springfield Hospital’s birthing center closing in 2019, the next closest hospitals with birthing services are Cheshire Medical Center in Keene, N.H., and Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield, Mass.
Copley Hospital cited similar reasons for closing their birthing center this past November, leaving patients in the Northeast Kingdom with the option to commute to either CVMC or UVM.
“Birth centers are part of a robust and thorough maternity care sort of system, but they’re not the answer to these. They’re not going to replace these hospitals that are closing. I just want to make that point clear,” Mandeville asserted.
The risks posed to area parents are serious and well documented,
“We know that lack of prenatal care or increased distances, drives of 30 to 60 minutes, or more, to access maternity care and or birth services increases both the risk of complications and pre-term labor… but the other thing that is sort of clear is that people who labor very quickly are at risk of not making it to their facility of choice to birth at.”
Having accessible care that is within an hour or less, ideally less says Mandeville, generally improves outcomes and access.
“We expect to see more complications, whether it’s from miscarriage or what we call precipitous births where the labor is three hours or less. We expect to see those things ending up in emergency rooms, and while those ER providers are amazing at what they do (we’re super, super grateful for them) they’re not the ideal candidates to be addressing obstetric emergencies.”
Copley also ceased providing pediatric services alongside closing the birthing center operations.
Mandeville hopes to address some of these issues by creating better access in their community.
“So while we won’t be catching babies, we are offering care that is more local, that is the midwifery model. Mary Lou Kopas and myself, we’re both Copley midwives, so we’ll be familiar faces to people.”
People will get a continuity of care with GMBC staffers, Mandeville says. The center will offer child birth education and trimester based classes so patients will be well informed, regardless of where they go to deliver.
“One of our priorities is to have a smooth transition of what we call transfer of care. I work per diem at Central Vermont Medical Center currently, and Mary Lou works per diem at Gifford, St. Johnsbury and CVMC . . . we have been in conversation with those facilities to coordinate smooth transfer of care and make sure that all the data points that they will want and need get sent to them before the patient arrives.
For interested parents or potential patients seeking more information, visit greenmountainbc.org. Scheduling can be done via an online form or the phone number listed on the website. In the future, self-scheduling will be available to patients.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do in Vermont, but we’re excited that at the very least we’re able to kind of feel a little bit of the gap that Copley left, even though there won’t be babies born in birth centers or hospitals in Lamoille County,” Mandeville concluded.
Raymonda Parchment is a Hardwick Gazette reporter. She recently graduated from Vermont State University - Castleton with a Bachelor’s Degree in English. She is a strong supporter of freedom of speech, and the right to publish information, opinions, and ideas without censorship or restraint. She is a lifelong lover of the written word, and is excited to join the team as a staff member.
