Brooklyn Birthing Center
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Madison
2183 Ocean Avenue (between Avenue R and Quentin Road), Brooklyn 11229
Map | Directions - https://brooklynbirthingcenter.com/
Categories
Childbirth Instructors - Childbirth Classes Hospitals And Birthing Centers Midwives & Midwifery ServicesDescription
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Reviews (25)
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Recent Brooklyn Birthing Center experiences?I'm a doula/LC and former Brooklyn Birthing Center volunteer and thought I'd share a few thoughts. First, the last I heard, BBC was really struggling in terms of finances and staffing, and were transferring a huge number of patients to local hospitals. This is not the first time they've hit road bumps; they have unfortunately struggled over the years due to chronic funding issues. I would thus recommend, if you go with them, asking a lot of questions about transfer rates, possibility of services being suspended, what happens if the center has only one midwife on duty the night you go into labor and there are other patients there already, whether you would be guaranteed continual care by a midwife during labor (versus a resident midwife), etc.
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Review from the 2020 Birthing Experience SurveyOy, I wish I could give a better review for the Birthing Center but I did not have a great labor experience there. I called them when I was in early labor and they told me I was having Braxton Hicks contractions. I called them again a few hours later when my water broke and my contractions were like every 2 minutes and they still said not to come in yet but to call my doula. By the time I arrived I was fully dilated, who knows for how long. Then after 2 hours of laboring down and 3 1/2 hours of coached pushing (in a VERY hot room), the baby still didn't come out, and they gave me the choice to go to the hospital but didn't really tell me what they recommended or even what they thought was going on. All in all I was at the birthing center for 8 hours, fully dilated, before I got in an ambulance to go to Maimonides. On the other hand, Maimonides, which I was terrified of transferring to, turned out to be a pretty good experience under the circumstances. The administration stinks, and my husband had a hard time coming in every day, but all of the doctors and nurses were top-notch, even the ones that seemed grumpy or pushy at first. In triage they determined quickly that the baby was in distress (very low heart rate) and I needed a c-section under general anesthesia. The baby came out perfectly healthy, and I had some complications that meant I didn't wake up until many hours later and had a lot of recovery to do, but everybody was very caring and treated me like a person. I had a roommate in the maternity ward, but just introducing myself and chatting with her made it much less awkward. The food is not great but there are some good places for takeout in the neighborhood.
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Review from the 2020 Birthing Experience SurveyI transferred to BBC at 27 weeks with no problem (except for having to change my insurance, oy). I never had to wait long for my appointments and all of the midwives were kind and gentle and try hard to make their checkups comfortable and unintrusive. There were some times when they seemed a bit disorganized - new midwives didn't know where things were, they scheduled my IUD insertion with someone who didn't do that procedure - but generally I enjoyed my appointments there.
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ISO recs for OBGYN accepting almost-third trimester transferThe Brooklyn Birthing Center is run by midwives not obgyns but they do accept patients transferring as late as 37 or 38 weeks in their pregnancy. They also have a branch in the city. Just an alternative: https://www.brooklynbirthingcenter.com/
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Review from the 2020 Birthing Experience SurveyI was supposed to give birth at the Mount Sinai Medical Center but after they prohibited doulas due to Covid-19 I transferred to the Brooklyn Birthing Center. Because man plans and God laughs, I had a precipitous labor and meconium in the amniotic fluid so I ended up at Maimonides for an emergency delivery--sans doula. So all I can say about Mount Sinai Medical Center is that they did not allow pregnant women to tour the premises and instead offered a video tour on their web site. My understanding is hospitals are supposed to offer tours so this seemed odd. While I did not give birth at the Brooklyn Birthing Center, I did have a few pre-natal visits and one postpartum visit and can say the midwives are caring and comforting. The staff, however, seemed overwhelmed though this is understandable because a deluge of pregnant women were trying to transfer there after many NYC hospitals prohibited doulas due to the pandemic. In contrast, the care I and my daughter received at Maimonides was top-notch. If I were to have another child, Maimonides would be my top choice. Unfortunately, they don't accept my insurance.
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HELLLOOOO??? Welcome May 2020 Families!I've been seeing the midwives associated with the Brooklyn Birthing Center and hope to give birth there. I've really liked all the midwives so far and I feel well taken care of. (January 2020)
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Re: Recommendations on Brooklyn Birthing CenterI gave birth at the BBC in 2013 and it worked so well for us we did it again last March 2017. I would say there wasn’t that much difference between the two times except a total changeover of midwives besides the head midwife, Linda. I like it because both times I got to have the birth I wanted- basically like a homebirth but better for us because we are in a small forth floor walk up. My four year old son got to see my newborn come out of me and it was awesome. They are very patient and will go hours and hours with you without transferring you. What I didn’t like is that you are not working with one midwife but a host of them so you never have that idealized bonding with your midwife. I happened to like and get along with all of them but didn’t get to know any of them that well. But when my day came it turned out a back up midwife was on because there were already two people in labor and I had never even met her so I was bummed about that. I ended up in the third room which was fine for me because I didn’t want to be in the tub anyways. My second came out so fast there was no time to think, but my first took sooooo long and the tub did help. I can answer more specific questions too. I recommend it highly and feel nothing but gratitude about both my birthing experiences.
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Re: Midwife recommendations?I delivered twice at Brooklyn birthing center in midwood with midwifes and loved it both times.
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Review submitted via the 2016 Birth SurveyThe birth center is plain and simple but clean, comfortable and well equipped. If you are a person that requires more of a pampered "customer service" approach to prenatal visits and birth than this place may not be for you. But if you want your birth to happen naturally on your terms than this is the place. You can also bring all the people, food/drink that you want to your birth. The birth center requires that you attend an orientation at the birth center, attend a child birth class and attend a free breastfeeding class at the birth center so that you are well informed (theoretically, at least). I saw 4 different midwives for my prenatal visits. I thought they were friendly, kind and addressed my questions. I also felt that they were skilled and knowledgeable. My biggest complaint with the birth center was that we were made to leave so soon after giving birth. My son was born at 1am. Then I breastfed, got stitched up and finally went to sleep at 4am. We were woken up and discharged at 7am. We had not slept for 2 nights (more like 3 for me) we were absolutely delirious from fatigue (not to mention that I had actively pushed for over 4 hours and couldn't keep any food down my whole labor and my face/eyes were swollen from pushing like I'd been in a boxing match) and then had to get in the car and drive home with our newborn which was downright dangerous. We just needed time to recover. I wish we'd been given time to sleep and rest because other than this, my experience with the birth center was great. And I very much appreciated a place to give birth with skilled midwives and without unnecessary medical intervention. Based on May 2016 birthing experience
