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SC Suspends License Of Fort Mill Midwife Center

carolinasbirthcenter.com

A Fort Mill birth center in which midwives deliver babies remains closed one week after South Carolina’s health department suspended its license.

The health department won’t comment on its investigation, but a statement from Carolina Community Maternity Center says the suspension occurred after a mother had to be rushed to a hospital and the birth resulted in, quote “a bad outcome.”

Now, Priscilla Benson of Charlotte doesn’t know what she’s going to do. She’s 18 weeks pregnant with her fourth child. She prefers working with midwives because they make her feel most normal. She says in her last delivery, she was able to go home just three hours after giving birth.

“I'm worried because my ideal birthing experience is not in a hospital and I'm worried that they're not going to be able to be open back up and then I'm not going to be able to use them," Benson says. 

The maternity center did not return requests for comment, but in a statement says the state recently started to enforce a regulation it had been ignoring. The regulation requires a physician to be on call and available to provide medical assistance at the birth center. 

The maternity center says the state approved its license without that requirement. Instead, the center has a physician available for medical assistance, but not required to be at the birth center.

In the case that sparked the suspension, the statement says a doctor would not have provided proper care at the birth center because the mother was in need of a hospital’s operating facilities.