Toronto Birth Centre opens in Regent Park

The Toronto Birth Centre took just under two years for design and construction — plus years of campaigning — to come to fruition in Regent Park.

It’s extraordinarily fast for a government project and it came just in time for Rebecca Grove, who is hoping to be one of the 450 women who will deliver their baby in the care of her own midwife, in a beautiful new facility in the city’s downtown core, this year.

“I’m due this week,” Grove laughed. It’s her first child and with her husband, they decided that a midwife — not a doctor — was best for them.

“I don’t feel that we need to be so medicalized with labour or childbirth because it happens. It’s normal.”

The facility officially opened its doors on Wednesday but Grove visited the facility, on Dundas Street, just east of Parliament Street, before it opened. The 12,500-square-foot birth centre is part of the revitalization of the neighbourhood and it’s hoped that it will help more women more easily access midwife care.

Sara Wolfe is one of the midwives who lobbied extensively for the project, oversaw much of its creation and is now based out of the centre. Part of the reason for the centre — one of the first of its kind in Ontario — is that there are many women like Grove.

“It’s a different model than what the Ministry of Health is used to. Typically, when you enter a hospital room, the first thing you see is a bed. Here, it’s a birth tub. We really wanted to promote active birthing,” Wolfe said.

“It’s such a beautiful time and women are so strong, we really wanted to support them. We’re trying to bring people out of hospitals … most women have normal healthy deliveries and when you have a low-risk centre, you’re promoting normal births, which is going to keep costs lower.”

The demand for midwifery is growing — currently, about 4 in 10 women who want a midwife can’t get one — and with a soaring health care budget, the low cost of a midwife clinic makes sense, Wolfe said.

The government agrees.

“We are moving more routine procedures out of hospitals and into specialized not-for-profit clinics like birth centres, where evidence shows that high quality care can be provided for better value,” Deb Matthews, Minister of Health and Long Term Care, said when the facility was announced in 2012.

“Midwife-led birth centres are a proven, safe and cost-effective alternative to hospital deliveries,” she said Wednesday.

It’s also expected to reduce the use of Cesearan sections, which are expensive, and other medical interventions like epidurals.

The focus is on low-risk pregnancies, with healthy mothers delivering healthy babies.

If complications arise, there is an ambulance entrance and women can be taken to nearby hospitals. For example, Seventh Generation Midwives, of which Wolfe is a part and whose offices are in the birth centre, has privileges at Sunnybrook Hospital.

Also unlike hospitals, each room has a double bed, to promote bonding with the entire family, and its own waiting room where the extended family can wait comfortably. There’s even a small kitchen to store and heat up prepared food.

“We’re birthing families,” Wolfe said.

The Toronto Birth Centre will be one of the first in Ontario. Along with a similar facility in Ottawa, it’s part of a $6-million pilot project. If it’s successful, it could be rolled out across the province. On Six Nations of the Grand River, the Tsi Non:we Ionnakeratstha Ona:grahsta’ Maternal and Child Centre is already providing care to Aboriginal women living on Six Nations and in outlying areas.

The birth centre was inspired by the Six Nations project and Wolfe, along with other midwives, also visited a similar site in Winnipeg — Manitoba opened its first birth centre in 2011.

“The centre was designed by Aboriginal women with the idea that we wanted to make care more accessible to more vulnerable and marginalized people. We know that Aboriginal people are among the most vulnerable in Canada and we wanted to make a space that spoke to them and to their needs and their philosophies and their world views.”

Grove’s husband is Metis and while she didn’t choose the centre for its Aboriginal connections, she felt welcome by the natural touches. Each of the three delivery rooms has an enormous birth tub, blue paint to simulate lakes, lamps that look like birch trees, an electric fire place and Native artwork on the walls.

“It’s beautiful,” Grove gushed, “I didn’t expect it all all.”

“We’re using that connection to nature and indigenous approach to community-building, it’s not about one person having one baby, it’s about families being born,” Wolfe said.

Clarification: The Ministry of Health said late Wednesday that while the centre was open, it was not yet accepting patients. A date to accept patients has not yet been set.

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