Midwife, doula hope to bring new life to Cherry St. with first West Michigan birthing suite

Midwife Sara Badger of Simply Born @ Home and doula Juliea Paige of Crowning Lotus Doula Services hope to bring new life to Cherry St., both figuratively and literally, with the creation of Cedar Tree Birth & Wellness birthing suite at 915 Cherry St. SE.

The three-story house next to Grove restaurant will soon be home to a whole host of pregnancy and birthing aids that will give healthy moms-to-be several options for bringing their babies into the world in a non-hospital setting. These moms don’t want the medical intervention often encountered in hospitals, yet don’t want to, or can’t, give birth at home.

Paige and Badger say this will be the first such facility in West Michigan.

The birthing suite — not to be confused with a birthing center — will see two to four births a month. The second story of the house is under construction to become an open floor plan apartment with all the comforts of home: living room, kitchen, bedroom, and bath. Expectant moms can give birth using the services provided by Badger and Paige.

“We work only with really low-risk birth moms,” Paige says. “We develop a detailed birth plan, go over every avenue of what could happen, and make the decisions on how to handle that if it happens. When you’re in [the midst of giving birth], it’s hard to remember what you’ve learned, so I’m like the lighthouse in the fog — we’ve made a game plan, we’re going to stay on the path, and we work intuitively to fulfill that need.”

The main floor of the house will be home base for meetings with parents, workshops on birthing and healthy pregnancies, and is available for rent to groups who need meeting space.

The attic area will be an office/resting area for midwives and doulas, so they can take a break during the lag times of labor.

Cedar Tree Birth & Wellness will open in April 2014.

Writer: Deborah Johnson Wood, Development News Editor