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Birth Center Gets Final Go Ahead

Laura Kennedy
/
WGLT

The State has issued a license to the Birth Center of Bloomington Normal.

Office Coordinator Jessica Poppe said they will begin offering birthing services to women with low risk pregnancies on Monday, October 10.

She said most of the people in line for service so far are from outside Bloomington Normal, though that may change.

"We have a lot of rural areas where people are going to have to drive thirty minutes in some direction. And so manybe before they would have driven thirty minutes toward Champaign or Peoria, and now we're about the same distance for them. And I'm also seeing that the women who live in Champaign or Springfield, there's not as many certified nurse midwives that do home births," said Poppe.

Poppe said the center has been seeing women for prenatal care since early July. She anticipates a couple births this month, four in November, and seven more in December.

The Birth Center is only the second such operation in the state and the only one outside Chicago. The center offers doctor backups, but the lower cost model includes nurse midwives for women with low risk pregnancies who do not want complex pain relief. 

WGLT Senior Reporter Charlie Schlenker has spent more than three award-winning decades in radio. He lives in Normal with his family.
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