Manhattan Birthing Center

Nice:

Celebrities back midtown birthing center
A group of midwifery advocates obtained a lease for a 7,000 square ft. of former retail space at 30th Street and 7th Avenue to open a birthing center in 2010.
December 18. 2007 3:33PMBy: Gale Scott

A group of midwifery advocates backed by Ricki Lake, Rosie O’Donnell and Gloria Steinhem plans to open a $7 million birth center near Penn Station in 2010.

The group has obtained a donated lease for a 7,000 square ft. former retail building on 30th Street at Seventh Avenue and has hired an architect. Next year, it will make a certificate of need application to the state, says Rebecca Benghiat, executive director of Friends of the Birth Center.

Since the 2003 closing of the Elizabeth Seton Childbearing Center in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, pregnant women have had few alternatives to hospital birth in New York City. The Seton Center, part of the Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers system, closed in part due to the soaring cost of malpractice insurance for midwives. The new center will not provide that coverage but require practitioners to purchase their own, with midwives and doctors operating as independent contractors billing insurers directly.

Ms. Lake, Ms. O’Donnell and Ms. Steinhem are helping to raise money for the center. Fundraising kicks off Jan. 9 with a benefit screening of The Business of Being Born, a documentary featuring the home birth of Ms. Lake’s second son.

-dr-