Until recently, Massachusetts relied on one freestanding birth center in Florence, a village more than 100 miles from Cambridge and Somerville. Centers in Holyoke and Beverly closed in 2020 and 2022, and the Cambridge Health Alliance shut down its Birth Center for six years at the start of the Covid pandemic.
Though the CHA Birth Center at 10 Camelia Ave., Mid-Cambridge, reopened July 6 and has been providing care to parents, it wasn’t until three months later – last week – that it expected to see its first delivery, said David Cecere, senior director of corporate communications at CHA.
CHA estimates there will be 100 births at the center within the first year and up to around 300 annually by year four, compared with an average 90 to 95 a year before its closing, Cecere said. The birth center model is designed to be comfortable and low-intervention and feature midwifery and doulas: Midwives provide primary care during pregnancy, delivery and after the birth, while doulas provide physical and emotional care.
When the doors to the Birth Center closed in 2020 after 22 years, the CHA Cambridge Hospital across the street was still delivering babies in its McGovern Maternity Suite. McGovern averages around 1,200 annual deliveries and offers midwife delivery, though doula services dipped during Covid after several retirements; a grant in 2023 helped reinvigorate the doula program, Cecere said in a Friday email.
The CHA situation is rare: “The vast majority of freestanding birth centers are not owned by a hospital,” said Judy Norsigian, author and editor over the several editions of the health resource “Our Bodies Ourselves.”
Reopening the CHA Birth Center to the public took $1 million in state funding secured by state representative Marjorie Decker, as well as work by other leaders such as U.S. representative Katherine Clark. Another $1 million for equipment and staff training came from a grant by Beth Israel Lahey Health. Interhospital grants are often structured to meet community benefit requirements or address gaps in care that a network cannot cover alone.
“Good to go for a long time”
The state funding was used to renovate the birth center’s homelike environment for patients. The center has a first-floor reception area, three exam rooms and a living area and kitchen for patients and families. The second floor has three birthing rooms, and parents using them have the option of soaking tubs for water births.
“It looks wonderful, and the equipment looks good. The renovations mean that it’s good to go for a long time,” said Norsigian, a member of an informal group of several advocates calling themselves the Coalition for the Cambridge Birth Center.
CHA’s reopening offers access to 17 doulas who together speak 12 languages, Cecere said, and 16 certified midwives. Birthings had to wait for the center to have a midwifery director. Kimberly Amsley-Camp left during the summer; a search found Erin Stein of South Carolina to come in and allow that work to begin, said people familiar with the workings of the center.
Birth center reimbursement bill
Advocates who fought to restore the facility view its return as a critical turning point. Emily Anesta, president of the Bay State Birth Coalition, noted that the reopening offers a hopeful alternative amid widespread hospital unit closings. “Maternal health overall has been worsening, and there is good evidence for the benefits of increasing the use of midwives and birth centers to reverse our maternal health crisis,” Anesta said. “Many people want to give birth outside of a hospital, but have not had access to this option since this birth center closed in 2020.”
Anesta also pointed to pending legislation filed by state representatives Lindsay Sabadosa and Manny Cruz and state senator Joan Lovely aimed at requiring insurers to reimburse birth centers fairly and establishing a state midwifery workforce development fund.
“Freestanding birth centers will struggle to keep their doors open if insurers continue to undervalue midwives and out-of-hospital care models,” Anesta said. “Fair reimbursement for midwives is a win-win, since expanding access to midwifery care reduces the need for expensive medical interventions.”
Patient volume is a factor
While the $1 million state grant secured by Decker helped pay for the reopening, members of the Legislature’s joint committee on financial services noted that the long-term sustainability of stand-alone birth centers statewide often relies on patient volume, MassHealth reimbursement rates and ongoing legislative contributions once initial funding cycles expire.
Patients come from all over for the Birth Center, Cecere said, and the health care system has reached out in several ways to raise awareness, with increased marketing, a call to community health workers and doulas to spread the word in their communities and through childbirth education classes in English, Spanish, Portuguese and Haitian Creole managed by doulas.
Decker pointed to broader House efforts to safeguard community health care facilities from operational disruptions, including $234 million in supplemental budget allocations aimed at supporting strained health centers while advancing financial oversight.
“Funding alone is not enough,” Decker said. “We need to make sure that community-based facilities are able to plan for the future, maintain the services their communities rely on and remain open and accessible.”
Watching outcomes
As the CHA Cambridge Birth Center completes its second month of restored operations, health care analysts and families will be watching whether this initial momentum translates into long-term stability. Whether Cambridge’s model remains an isolated success story or serves as a blueprint for expanding community-based maternal care across Massachusetts depends on sustained state support and clinical volume in the years ahead.
Decker credited direct testimony from mothers and families as helping the multiyear effort to reopen the center. “Hearing from mothers and families reinforced what I already knew,” Decker said. “This was never just about a building. It was about preserving a model of care that makes families feel seen, supported and empowered.”
The reopening shows what is possible when leaders, providers and residents organize around shared health care priorities, Decker said. “It tells families that they deserve meaningful choices in childbirth, access to high-quality, compassionate care and a health care system that listens to them.”
