Birthing center in Thornton closing, adding to decline in maternal care options
The doors are closing on one of Colorado's few birthing centers.
The closure of Seasons Midwifery and Birth Center comes even as state health department numbers show a steady increase in women choosing to have children in those settings versus a traditional hospital.
"His feet are right here," Mikayla Norcross said, pointing to two tiny footprints on a wall at Seasons.
Norcross just finished her care there after having her little boy Ari in June. It was an experience she says was far different than her first child.
"I can't say that I had a bad hospital experience. It was maybe what I expected it to be at the time, but there were some interventions I maybe would have chosen not to do now, looking back," she said
"Who loses the most out of this is the families," Seasons Director Aubre Tompkins said. "They're ultimately the biggest victims in this mismatch of how the system works and how we get paid."
Tompkins says the center wasn't bringing in the revenue expected by the private equity firm that owned their clinic and ultimately the decision was made to shut them down.
"insurance companies and Medicaid don't reimburse us at the same rates as they reimburse hospitals and so there's automatically a disparity in the funding we have available to us," Tompkins said.
It's a problem for their center and other maternal care providers across Colorado and across the country.
"Probably the most evident is the closure of rural hospitals. Volume and diversity of payment structures is what keeps birth centers and others financially solvent," Denise Smith, assistant professor at the CU College of Nursing said.
Smith says it may be time to look at restructuring that system.
"The return on investment in child-bearing and maternity care is to the population to our communities and our families if the motive is something other than that then, we have to ask ourselves what do we really value?" she asked.
While the loss is personal for Norcross, having fewer options, she says, hurts everyone.
"I think it's just so important to keep it open," Norcross said.
Seasons hopes to reopen as the first nonprofit birthing center in Colorado in January and have started raising funds to help reach that goal at the following links: