All right, in the next two videos, we're going to talk about freestanding birth centers.

And by the end of this video and the next video, you'll be able to define birth centers

and discuss relationship between freestanding birth centers and hospitals, describe outcomes

in U.S.-based birth centers, and discuss accreditation and licensure.

I will say some of the more anecdotal information that I'm going to share with you

comes from a consulting project I did with the American Association of Birth Centers in 2013,

so I got some background information at that time, and I was also hired a few

years later as a consultant for a large healthcare system in South Africa, who wanted me to

interview birth center owners, midwives, and physicians who work with birth centers across the

United States. So in those interviews, I found a lot of insider information

about relationships between birth centers and hospitals. So what is a birth center? This term can be really

confusing. And in fact, the definition that I used to teach in this class has changed.

In 2017, the American Association of Birth Centers released a press release describing their new definition.

They define the birth center as a health care facility for childbirth where care is provided

in the midwifery and wellness model.

The birth center is freestanding and not a hospital.

This is a revision of the earlier definition. It used to be that some birth centers could be considered

to be in hospitals as long as they were physically separate from the regular labor and delivery

unit. But for many reasons, the American Association of Birth Centers,

or AABC, decided to move away from that definition to defining a birth center as free standing.

AAB says, quote, birth centers are an integrated part of the health care system and are guided by

principles of prevention, sensitivity, safety, appropriate

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