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Freestanding Birth Centers Are Closing as Maternity Care Gaps Grow
About two dozen birth centers have closed since 2023 due to regulatory hurdles, financial pressures, and opposition from hospitals, impacting access to maternity care nationwide.
- Recently, freestanding birth centers nationwide have declined to about 395 after about two dozen closures since 2023, amid more than two dozen hospital labor-and-delivery unit closures in 2025.
- Regulatory hurdles such as certificate-of-need rules have blocked or delayed birth-center openings, while local hospitals filed opposition and refused written transfer agreements, stalling some centers like Katie Chubb's.
- Insurers and Medicaid reimburse birth centers far below local hospitals, while rising malpractice premiums and financial constraints force reliance on volunteers, Sarah Simmons said.
- Access gaps are deepening in tribal and rural areas with high maternal mortality rates, forcing some to give birth in hospital hallways or at home unassisted, especially harming tribal women and Colville Indian Reservation communities.
- State and federal proposals in 2024 aim to change payment and grant support for centers, while a nonprofit recently bought a building aiming to open a center in 2027 and trained nearly a dozen tribal doulas.
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Coverage Details
Total News Sources10
Leaning Left5Leaning Right0Center4Last UpdatedBias Distribution56% Left
Bias Distribution
- 56% of the sources lean Left
56% Left
L 56%
C 44%
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