43
Delivered its first baby on June 28
LIBERTY
Tabitha Mae Moliter- no is not only Natalie and Atty. Jeffrey Moliterno’s first child, she is also the first baby born at the Mahoning Valley Birth Center.
“It was a very positive experience. Our goal was to have an alert, healthy baby, and that’s what we got,” said Natalie, of Canfield.
The Mahoning Valley Birth Center, 3622 Belmont Ave., Suite 21, is the only freestanding birth center in Ohio, said owner Rachel Sieman, a longtime area registered nurse and midwife.
Weighing 8 pounds, 8 ounces at birth at 6:05 p.m. June 28, Tabitha and her mom and dad are doing well.
“He’s feeling guilty, he’s getting so much sleep,” Natalie said of her husband, who supported her during Tabitha’s birth.
Tabitha’s grandparents, Paul and Crystal McElhaney of Centerburg and Jeff and Patty Moliterno of Canfield, were at the center for the birth and were able to see their new granddaughter very soon after her arrival.
Natalie, a nanny who attended The Ohio State University, said she knew she wanted a midwife for her pregnancy and Tabitha’s birth, and said her husband was also very enthusiastic about the idea.
“It really is the best of both worlds. We had the calm and supportive environment of the birth center, and it was a three-minute ride to Northside [Medical Center] if something should happen,” Natalie said.
Natalie was driven by her husband to the birth center, arriving at 10 p.m. June 27. Tabitha was born at 6:05 p.m. on June 28.
“I didn’t feel really rushed. I didn’t have any drugs. Tabitha was full-term, and there were no particular problems. It was a very positive experience,” Natalie said.
A required part of the process is orientation and counseling and training provided expectant parents by the out-patient birth center, Sieman said.
The orientation lets potential patients know what the birth center offers and what it does not have, she said.
“We take every reasonable precaution to provide a safe alternative to hospital births,” Sieman said.
But it does not accept high-risk pregnancies, and the consent form signed by prospective parents lists what isn’t available.
Not on the premises are an electronic fetal monitor, an operating room, an intensive care unit for mother or baby nor highly specialized services and equipment such units contain, blood or blood products, and epidural anesthesia or narcotic pain medications.
What is offered, Sieman said, are birth suites with a home-like atmosphere and a tub to soak in or for a water birth, an emergency cart with equipment for resuscitation if needed and home visits after the birth.
Also, she said, to promote bonding and breast feeding, the mother and child are not separated immediately after the birth; and the mother can have whomever she wants in the birth suite.
Once the bonding has begun, the mother can take time to eat and take a shower and go home and take care of her baby, Sieman said.
Support and encouragement, in addition to medical skills and safeguards in case of a problem, are among the things that the birth center staff brings to the experience, Sieman said.
The birth center’s collaborating physician is Dr. Joni Canby of Progressive Women’s Care in Boardman, with which Sieman is affiliated. Also, transfer agreements are in place with nearby Northside Medical Center and Akron Children’s Hospital neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) in St. Elizabeth Health Center on Belmont Avenue, Sieman said.
“I felt well prepared. Rachel said to me: ‘This is what your body is built to do. There is no reason to be intimidated by it.’
“I wouldn’t say I was frightened. But after it was over, I realized it wasn’t exactly what I had expected. Books say there are different stages of labor, but for me it all seemed to run together. I thought I would be more in control of the situation than I was,” Natalie said.
The Moliternos are among the growing number of people interested in birth centers and home births as alternatives to hospital births, partially fueled by a 2008 television documentary, “The Business of Being Born,” Sieman said.
Sieman said the United States culture still believes that babies should be born in hospitals, but she said her business is growing, mostly through word-of-mouth by patients she has delivered, and through public awareness on social media and elsewhere.
Sieman, who has lived in the Youngstown area most of her life, graduated from Youngstown Christian School, has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nursing from Youngstown State University and Case Western Reserve University and a certificate in nurse-midwifery from the Frontier School of Midwifery and Family Nursing.
She previously worked as a registered nurse at Sharon Regional Health System, St. Elizabeth Health Center, and the Doughty View Midwifery Center in Millersburg. She is certified through the American Midwifery Certification Board, licensed by the Ohio Department of Health, and has delivery privileges at St. Elizabeth and Northside. Sieman began planning the birth center in 2004 and became a midwife in 2007.
“I love giving women the opportunity to give birth the way they want to, and how strong they can be if they are in a relaxed environment and supported and not disturbed during labor,” Sieman said.