Natural Birth Center at Inova Loudoun Hospital

This facility features large, home-like birthing suites with queen size beds, labor soaking tubs and all of the comforts of home - including a living area with fireplace and full sized kitchen. Births are unmedicated and staffed by certified nurse midwives and registered nurses. If complications arise, access to advanced technology and medical resources – including the county’s only NICU – are just steps away.

What Should I Expect During Labor?

Understanding that childbirth is truly a family event, we support and encourage your family to play an active role in welcoming your baby. Many families enjoy our birth center's family room, kitchen, and play areas.

Our spacious birthing suites are equipped with deep soaking tubs, labor slings, and birth balls. Laboring mothers are encouraged to do whatever their bodies tell them to do including:

Moving
Walking
Eating
Drinking

Water immersion offers a relaxing and comforting environment during labor, minimizing the need for pain medication and allowing the mother to easily change positions.

Do You Offer a Drug-Free Delivery?

Our team is committed to helping you have a drug-free birth. We are trained to coach and support you through your labor. Our goal is for you to feel relaxed and empowered so that you can safely and effectively birth your child in your own way. The rewards of learning to trust your body's innate ability to birth will have a lasting impact on both you and your family.

Can I Use a Midwife?

Inova Loudoun Hospital is pleased to offer moms-to-be the option of working with a certified nurse midwife (CNM), a registered nurse with undergraduate and advanced degrees in nursing and midwifery from an accredited nurse-midwifery education program. Nurse midwives provide patient care during pre-conception, pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period.

To deliver at the Natural Birth Center, patients must be under the care of a CNM at Loudoun OB/GYN and Midwives.

Midwife services at Inova Loudoun

What Can I Expect After Delivery?

The recovery period at the Natural Birth Center allows you to stay 2 hours after you deliver. During that time, babies are never separated from their mothers. We encourage skin-to-skin contact and that the baby nurse during the first couple of hours. Mom and baby are then moved to the Postpartum Unit at The Birthing Inn.

What If Hospital Care Is Needed Before My Delivery?

In the event that you require hospital care before your delivery, a seamless transfer will be made to the Inova Loudoun Ladies Board Birthing Inn – just steps away. Your provider will continue with your care as appropriate.

What Does the Natural Birth Center Experience Not Include?

Induction
Augmentation of labor with Pitocin (Oxytocin)
Continuous electronic fetal monitoring except Doppler ultrasound
Drugs for pain relief except local analgesic to suture tears in the perineum
Operative deliveries (C-section)
High-risk pregnancies
Vaginal births after cesarean (VBACs)

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