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Gifford Birthing Center celebrating three decades of
hospital-based, holistic births
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RANDOLPH, Sept. 17, 2007 – In late December 1977, a Gifford Medical Center nurse gave birth to the first baby born in Gifford’s new birthing room – the first facility of its kind in New England.
Later this year, that then 8-pound, 9 ounce baby turns 30 and with him so will the Gifford Birthing Center.
Known throughout the state, the small, home-like Gifford Birthing Center got its start when two young physicians had a meeting of the minds.
‘A real birthing center’
In the mid-1970s, Gifford pediatrician – and now hospital medical director – Dr. Lou DiNicola recalls asking a local family practitioner, Thurmond Knight, what it would take for him to help laboring women in the hospital setting.
His answer was “a real birthing center.”
Knight had helped women give birth to about 125 babies at home in the mid-1970s, backing up 14 lay midwives. “That was what was happening at the time,” Knight says of the growing culture of home births.
The first home birth he attended was in Shoreham. “It was the most beautiful childbirth I had ever seen,” Knight says. “Everything happened with such grace and beauty.”
He had read an article in a midwife journal about a hospital in Georgia that had created a birthing room – the first of its kind in the country, Knight says – to lure the black population into the hospital. At the time, says Knights, “granny midwives” were helping nearly all black women in this part of Georgia give birth at home. At $100 a birth, the Georgia hospital hoped to bring those women to the safety of a hospital setting while also providing the warmth and informality of home.
Knight brought the article to DiNicola and then hospital administrator Phil Levesque and suggested Gifford do the same. They were in full support, and the Gifford birthing room opened in 1977 on the third floor of the hospital.
“There was nothing like it that existed at the time,” DiNicola says.
“People came from all over – New Hampshire, New York, Massachusetts,” Knight recalls. “It just took off.”
And a larger medical community, which was at first concerned, took notice.
A new standard for birthing in Vermont
Prior to Gifford’s birthing room in 1977, the options in Vermont and New England were pretty much what the movies show us.
Moms gave birth in a sterile delivery room, complete with table, stirrups, gowns, caps and masks. Once baby arrived, he or she was whisked away to be cleaned up and eventually settled in a nursery while mom moved to a postpartum recovery room.
Tina Clifford, now Randolph Elementary School’s nurse, began work at Gifford in January 1978, just a month after the birthing room opened. She’d given birth herself in Burlington in early 1977 while in nursing school. She recalls having to sign a liability waiver in order to keep her baby in the hospital room with her.
“Birth was really medically managed,” she says, noting mothers-to-be had two choices: give birth naturally at home or in a hospital where medications were encouraged and even walking around was discouraged.
Consequently, the Gifford birthing room alternative quickly became the preference of women and families.
“It became clear that that was the option that most people wanted and used,” DiNicola says.
A lone birthing room became four and soon replaced the delivery room altogether, Knight and DiNicola found themselves speaking at the University of Vermont and Dartmouth College medical schools, ob/gyn physicians and midwives joined the hospital and then, in 1999, the Birthing Center of today was built in its own wing on the ground floor.
Since, other hospitals have followed suit – at least in part – but the Gifford Birthing Center and its ob/gyn and midwifery practice has remained what new Gifford midwife Amie Kennedy recently called “the gold standard.”
With 30 years and about 9,000 births to its credit, Gifford continues to attract women from throughout Vermont and beyond.
“I am frequently asked what it is about Gifford’s Birthing Center that makes it such a wonderful place to birth a baby; why women and their families are willing to travel, sometimes significant distances, to have their baby in our center,” says Bonnie Hervieux-Woodbury, Gifford Birthing Center director of nursing. “In actuality, it is a combination of many things.
“First and foremost, we believe that pregnancy, labor and birth are natural events in a woman’s life. With that basic premise in mind, we work together – obstetricians, pediatricians, nurse midwives, general practitioners and staff nurses – to ensure that women and their partners are informed, educated, supported and included in all decisions regarding their care.
“It is rare to find such a diverse group of individuals who are able to come together as a true team: professional, compassionate, skilled and committed to positive birthing experiences,” Hervieux-Woodbury says.
But then again, Gifford has long been ahead of the curve when it comes to giving birth.
Dads in the delivery room?
Even before the celebrated Birthing Center of today, Gifford was turning heads in the medical community by allowing dads through first the labor room, and then the delivery room, door beginning in the early 1960s, now retired family physician Ronald Gadway recalls. He was the first in Vermont to allow fathers to enter the “sterile” environment of hospital birthing, he says. It was a decision that raised quite a few eyebrows.
“In fact, UVM was a little nervous about that. It did a study on us,” recalls Gadway of South Royalton.
Gadway, a Gifford doctor for 34 years, believes that early decision gave the foundation for the Birthing Center philosophy that remains today.
The birthing philosophy
Gifford’s philosophy – the one that so many women and families find attractive – is that pregnancy and birth are normal life processes, that little intervention is required for most pregnancies and that medical technologies are only introduced when needed for more complex births. The goal is to provide a loving, supportive environment in which families can safely experience the miracle of birth.
Ingrid May of Ira gave birth to Gifford’s “New Year’s baby” this Jan. 1. Seven-pound, 3-ounce Sophia was May and husband Eric’s sixth child – their second at Gifford.
“We like the midwife experience,” says May, “and we love the hometown, small hospital type of experience. The care that we got at Gifford was just wonderful. We really enjoyed the experience and it felt like home.”
“It’s a great place to have a baby,” Eric adds.
Gifford was also the only hospital in her region with a full midwifery team employed by the hospital and providing round the clock care, and the only hospital to allow May to have a traditional vaginal birth following a cesarean section. Her first child was born by cesarean section 12 years ago and despite four – now five – successful vaginal births, no other hospital May approached would allow her to deliver Sophia vaginally, May says.
Gifford also allows women to give birth in a spacious tub and to stay in the same room before, during and after giving birth, notes registered nurse Annette Robinson, who has worked nights in the Birthing Center on and off since 1980, including with Knight and Gadway in the early days.
“It’s ‘the great place to give birth,’” Robinson says of Gifford.
A great place to birth, and work
“It’s just a special place and anybody who’s worked in any other hospital knows how different it is,” Robinson says. “We actually look at pregnancy as a natural, healthy experience and don’t look at it as all the things that could go wrong. Yes, we’re prepared for what could go wrong, but we don’t look for it.”
Registered nurse Heather Evans joined Gifford just last year, having previously worked at three major medical centers and one community hospital.
“I decided to work at Gifford because of the Birthing Center’s outstanding reputation for quality care and natural birth choices,” Evans says. “When I started working here at the end of 2006, I realized that the Birthing Center was even better than its reputation. There is a real sense of teamwork between nurses, midwives and physicians. This allows us to provide skilled and compassionate care to our clients while celebrating each individual birth experience.”
Sharing the ‘magic’
Families frequently write to the hospital to express thanks for their birth experience.
“We drove an hour to come to Gifford, and in retrospect I would have driven eight,” one woman wrote earlier this year. “My wishes were respected down the smallest detail. We felt utterly blessed by the entire experience.”
And Gifford staff derives great joy from experiencing the miracle of birth with families.
“Pregnancy, labor, birth, and parenthood are life-altering experiences for all families. It is truly a gift to be entrusted to support and care for families as they negotiate these paths,” says Hervieux-Woodbury, a Gifford nurse for 19 years. “To attend to a laboring woman, to hear her infant’s first cry, to see the love and awe in that mom’s eyes as she welcomes her newborn to the world, to see a new dad cradle his infant for the first time – these are magical moments. So many times it is difficult to believe that this is what we do every day.”
“For 30 years, the Birthing Center at Gifford has embraced and supported these beliefs, Hervieux-Woodbury says. “It is a proud tradition. The legacy lives on, and the magic continues.”
Join Hervieux-Woodbury and Gifford’s birthing team – nurses, doctors and midwives – on Thursday from 5-7 p.m. at the hospital as the Birthing Center celebrates its 30th birthday. Use the new visitors’ entrance and look for signs directing you to the celebration.