Our Story
Our Community Birth Center provides wrap around health care and support for families, birthing parents, and babies. Our programs specialize in the care of the childbearing person and also include all options pregnancy counseling, newborn and lactation care, women’s and LGBTQIA+ health care, fertility, family planning, contraception, childbirth preparation classes, social connection and community support, and postpartum home visits. All of our care is provided by expert, professional health care providers in a single location that is familiar to clients.
Birth center care is proven to contribute to excellent outcomes for parents and babies. Data shows you’re more likely to have a normal vaginal birth, less likely to have a preterm birth or low birth weight infant, and you have an increased likelihood of success in breast/chest-feeding when you get your pregnancy care through a birth center (Strong Start for Mothers and Newborns, 2010). These are all concrete ways that a birth center contributes to the health and well-being of our community’s tiniest members and the parents who birth and nurture them.
Our Community Birth Center is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, located in the Eugene-Springfield area of Oregon and serving residents of Lane County and surrounding areas. Our Community Birth Center is located in a lovely home-like building adjacent to Island Park and the Willamette River in Springfield, Oregon. Our Community Birth Center launched our midwifery birth center and health clinic services in November 2021. The organization was founded in September 2019 to carry forward the long tradition of nurse midwifery birth center care in Lane County. The former Nurse Midwifery Birth Center was a highly sought-out and respected health care center in Lane County from the late 1970s up until its closure in November 2019. Read our Lane County Birth Center Historical Timeline for more details.
The formation of Our Community Birth Center was inspired by the six month long community advocacy campaign to #SaveTheNurseMidwiferyBirthCenter in summer of 2019 when PeaceHealth announced their plan to close the Nurse Midwifery Birth Center. Birth center clients, community members, and health care providers rallied, wrote letters, and expressed their support of the birth center in so many ways during that time. The vast and passionate advocacy effort clearly demonstrated that our community desires and deserves access to birth center services. We are honored to carry forward the long tradition of outstanding nurse midwifery birth center care through Our Community Birth Center.
