An independent birth center has reopened in Asheville, ending a period of nearly two years without such a facility in Western North Carolina. Lilac Health Asheville Birth & Wellness Center is in the same location as Western North Carolina Birth Center, which closed in July 2021. The South French Broad Avenue birth center is staffed by […]
A recent Tuesday afternoon at the Western North Carolina Birth Center was unusually quiet. The birthing rooms were empty. No laboring mothers paced the halls; no infants wailed. The staff arrived for work, but the mood was forlorn. July 20 marked the close of the WNC Birth Center, the only 24/7 midwifery option in Asheville. […]
When Emma Strickland learned she was pregnant with her second child, she started looking for an alternative to a hospital birth. She found it at the WNC Birth Center. The center is open during the COVID pandemic but has had to scale back on some of its related services. Ironically, that’s led to a shortage of income at a time when women like Strickland find themselves increasingly drawn to a birth center.
Coming out of general anesthesia, Erin Salkin opened her eyes and looked around the hospital room, searching for the woman who could answer her question. She’d just given birth to her first child, Dylan, and she wanted to know if the emergency cesarean section doctors had performed meant she couldn’t have another child naturally, as […]
