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Why is N.C. afraid of midwives?

By Paula M. White

click to enlarge

JASIATIC - BIRTH DAZE: (Left to right) Leigh Fransen, Christine Strothers, Damaris Pittman and Lisa Johnson

Jasiatic
BIRTH DAZE: (Left to right) Leigh Fransen, Christine Strothers, Damaris Pittman and Lisa Johnson

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Fransen went to Windsor Park Elementary School and Eastway Junior Senior High in Charlotte before her Air Force family moved away. She attended the International School of Midwifery in Miami. It was while she was training at the Miami Maternity Center that the idea for the maternity center was planted.

"Many of the moms I worked with in Miami were just ordinary women who would've never had a natural birth if the birth center wasn't there," Fransen said. "They weren't moms who would've had a home birth, and they weren't really moms who would've thought they could have a great residential birth in the hospital. It was not a fringe group of women who were going to fight to have a natural birth experience."

But the experience is one that Fransen believes is worth fighting for. She set out to replicate the Miami model in an area that didn't have a birth center as an option. After scouting the country, she decided that Charlotte, or just outside of Charlotte to be exact, was the perfect spot.

"I recognized that this was a very unique situation," explained Fransen. "Midwifery [without supervision of a physician] is illegal in North Carolina. In South Carolina, however, it's legal, licensed and regulated, and North Carolina's largest metropolitan area is sitting on the border."

After identifying the need, she started making calls. She said the first call she made was to the organization Midwives of South Carolina. She asked why there wasn't a birth center in Fort Mill. She also asked if anyone was working on building one and if there was a reason not to. When she got the replies back that it was a good idea but nobody was doing it, she knew what she had to do. She and her family moved from Miami in late 2008, and she began networking with other local midwives.

One of the first midwives she connected with was Damaris Pittman. A midwife with 17 years of experience, Pittman was open to the idea of a birth center, but initially had no intention of stopping her practice as a home-based midwife.

"When Leigh approached me with the idea, my plan was to help her make some of the connections she would need to get started," said Pittman. "But one day in March of 2009, three of us were brainstorming at my kitchen table and the idea of making it a nonprofit came up. That's when we all got excited. We realized that was the way we could make it work. "

At the table that day with Fransen and Pittman was Christine Strothers. In the days following, they invited midwife Lisa Johnson to join them, and the four women began taking steps to make the Carolina Community Maternity Center a reality. Over the next few months, they established a board, found a location, did fundraising and began doing prenatal visits with expectant moms at Johnson's house in Fort Mill.

On Oct. 22, the Department of Health and Environmental Control did the final inspection of their facility and handed them their license to do business. The four midwives took themselves to lunch to celebrate their accomplishment. They'd been shooting to open on Labor Day, which would've been six months since the kitchen-table conversation, but a month beyond that was fine with them. On the way to the restaurant, Pittman called one of her moms who was a few days beyond her due date to tell her the news. The mom called her back 10 minutes later saying her water had just broken. Later that night, the Carolina Community Maternity Center welcomed its first bundle of joy.

It was just before 3 a.m. on Aug. 5 when Salina and Clark pulled back into the maternity center. By this time, the contractions were coming hard and fast. It took Salina five minutes to get to the door because she doubled over twice.

Inside the center, Fransen and her apprentice were quietly filling the bathtub and setting out their essentials. The back birthing suite decorated with different shades of green was dimly lit and ready. Salina moved to the oversized tub and slipped off her gray nursing gown before sliding into the warm water.

By 7 a.m., she was exhausted and getting frustrated. The contractions kept coming, but nothing else was happening. She told Clark to take the clock off the wall; it was in her direct line of vision, and she was getting discouraged. Fransen suggested a change in strategy. They helped Salina climb out.

At one of Salina's prenatal visits, Fransen had offered her fresh figs from a tree in her yard. Salina loved them. She'd requested that Fransen bring in some for her birth. Once out the tub and walking around, Salina began munching on figs and Powerbars to keep up her energy. At this point, she was dilated 10 centimeters, but had no urge to push.

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