Our Mission
The Midwife Center for Birth & Women’s Health promotes wellness by providing exceptional, client-centered primary gynecological, pregnancy and birthing care in southwestern Pennsylvania’s only independent birth center.
Our Vision
The Midwife Center (TMC) will provide exceptional, personalized, client-centered care to a large, diverse clientele. It will focus its outreach efforts on communities who experience poor health outcomes in order to have a more significant impact on improving the health of people in our region. Recognized for providing the highest quality care, TMC will participate in research, provide midwifery education to future providers, and advocate for improved midwifery regulations and reimbursements. These activities will further the field of midwifery and meet the growing demand for midwifery services.
Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) Statement
The Midwife Center recognizes the poor and disparate maternal and infant health outcomes experienced in the Pittsburgh region and the importance of increasing access to its services that result in better health outcomes and significantly reduce racial disparities. As a nonprofit health provider, and birth center, we honor and are guided by the legacy of the Black and Indigenous birth workers who came before, with a commitment to creating a safe, inclusive, and satisfying experience for all clients and staff.
At The Midwife Center, we honor and are guided by the legacy of the Black and Indigenous birth workers who came before, with a commitment to recognizing the breadth and depth of their impact then and now. For us, that means challenging ourselves to be honest about how far we’ve come, under whose name, and at whose expense. It also means being honest with ourselves; we hold space for our authentic identities and the diversity of our experiences in one hand, while holding ourselves, each other, and our communities accountable with the other.
As a nonprofit health provider, The Midwife Center recognizes the importance of increasing access to its services that result in better health outcomes and significantly reduce racial disparities. The Midwife Center is uniquely positioned to address the poor and disparate maternal and infant health outcomes experienced in the Pittsburgh region by providing individualized care, genuine compassion, and cultural responsiveness to our clients and community as well as our staff and students. We do this by working to create a safe, inclusive, and satisfying experience for all clients and staff that acknowledges how the many intersections of identity and marginalization may impact each person’s healthcare needs and expectations.
Moving at the speed of trust, we adapt alongside the communities we serve and reflect so that we may bridge pathways to a more equitable reproductive future for all.
- TMC provides care and education to women of all ages, races, sexual orientations, religions, and socioeconomic status.
- Women and families are active participants in their care at The Midwife Center. Midwifery care maximizes birth’s potential as a peak experience for the family by stressing education and personal responsibility of all family members.
- TMC recognizes that birth is a powerful and life-changing experience. We provide a trusting, private, and respectful environment for our clients to be empowered and celebrated.
- Similarly, midwifery care maximizes the potential for wellness and gynecological care to be a transformative, empowering experience.
- TMC’s staff recognizes that pregnancy, childbirth, and maturation are normal life processes, in which a provider should not intervene without evidence of a problem.
- The highest standard of care is achieved when certified nurse-midwives are first-line care providers in collaboration with excellent physicians and other area service providers.
- Birth centers are part of the solution to the nation’s crisis in rising rates of unnecessary c-sections and increased infant mortality.
- Each exchange with the health care system should leave the consumer more knowledgeable about maintaining and maximizing one’s health. TMC offers education during appointments and classes at the center and in the community.
- TMC provides postpartum support with emphasis on establishing successful breastfeeding.
- TMC maintains licensure, accreditation, and a program of quality assurance for its practice and facility. TMC's practice is based on the most current medical knowledge and our model of care fosters continual improvement to its clients’ care. TMC’s midwives provide care in accordance with the American College of Nurse Midwives Standards and Code of Ethics.
- Excellent care is best achieved with a financially secure center and a stable, high-quality staff. TMC combines careful business practices with fundraising to implement new programs, keep services available to all, and improve facilities to best serve its clients. Furthermore, the entire staff of The Midwife Center treats clients with respect, compassion and sensitivity at all times.
- TMC values the diversity of communities within and surrounding the Western PA region and strives to be inclusive with its outreach efforts and services people from communities that suffer health disparities including people with limited incomes, people of color, people with disabilities and gender non-conforming and LGBTQI people.
- TMC educates and engages the broader community to advocate about the benefits of midwifery and birth center care to policy-makers in order to maintain and increase accessibility to midwifery and birth center services.
- TMC educates future CNMs and RNs and other healthcare providers in the birth center model of care, and participates in research, as appropriate, to further the field of midwifery and ensure access to birth center care in the future.
