Q: What about hospital care?

A: The decision of where to give birth is dependent on many factors. Many families are happy to find home birth caregivers and plan to give birth at home. Other families prefer access to the services provided by the hospital and gain additional comfort knowing our philosophy of care decreases the likelihood of interventions.

The Birth & Beyond midwives are affiliated with Hartford Hospital, which is where we provide planned hospital birth care. If you choose to have a hospital birth we encourage you to avail yourself of a tour and register with the hospital by 32 weeks. We are often able to provide early discharge if desired by the family. Families choosing to leave the hospital in less than two days will receive follow-up care at home.

Each office visit provides the opportunity to evaluate the progress of the pregnancy and provide guidance to optimize health. Occasionally a healthy woman will develop a complication which requires a shift from a planned home birth to a hospital birth. We work hard to facilitate the process, recognizing the stress of such a change in plans. Our consulting physicians are available to consult for medical concerns when they arise.

The need for hospital birth care sometimes develops before labor, for example, a woman who develops substantial, on-going blood pressure elevation. Some women will develop a non-urgent complication in labor such as significantly prolonged labor.  In this case the Birth & Beyond midwives may continue as the primary care-givers during the hospital admission. The scope of our care includes the induction of labor and access to pain management options such as epidurals, as needed.

If a serious medical condition develops requiring on-going care by our medical consultants, we coordinate the transfer of care and remain involved as a resource for information and on-going support  through the birth and post-partum period.

Urgent situations develop rarely in the course of a planned home birth. In this event, the midwives initiate emergency transport to the closest medical facility through use of EMS services. Our goal is to keep the mother and baby stable, facilitate care and communication and provide on-going support through the process. All Birth & Beyond caregivers are BLS and NALS certified.