Minnesota Birth Center treats pregnancy as a wonderful gift

Choosing where to give birth: Birthing center

Hebrew midwives Shiphrah and Puah feared God over their earthly ruler, Pharoah, after he ordered them to kill any male Hebrew that was born under their care at that time (Exodus 1:15-21). In God's providence, they defied the Egyptian king and saved many lives.

This story, which reveals that God’s plan, purpose, and law is higher than anyone else’s and that life is to be valued as a blessing from God, inspired Dr. Steve Calvin to open a life-affirming birth center in Minnesota’s Twin Cities.

A painting of these Hebrew midwives hangs inside the Minnesota Birth Center, which he founded 12 years ago. Since then, more than 4,000 babies have been born at one of the birth center’s two locations in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Dr. Calvin has extensive experience as a maternal fetal medicine specialist. He attended Bethel College in Minnesota and went to medical school at Washington University in St. Louis. After that, he completed an OB-GYN residency at the University of Minnesota before taking care of Native American and Spanish-speaking patients at El Rio Neighborhood Health Center in Arizona. He later completed another fellowship, this time at the University of Arizona, before moving back to Minnesota, where he practiced for 35 years. Minnesota Birth Center opened in 2012 and Dr. Calvin has been serving as the medical director there since.

“With my career doing maternal fetal medicine, I know virtually every bad thing that can happen to mothers and babies,” he said. “I know pregnancy can become complicated, but basically our vision at the birth center is that pregnancy is a normal biological process. It’s miraculous, and it has the potential to go wrong, and things can get complicated, but it’s rare.”

As a long-time admirer of midwifery care, treating pregnancy not as a disease but as a wonderful process and gift from the Lord, he launched the birth center with those principles behind it. It offers a midwife-led maternity care model that empowers mothers to have a safe, seamless, and satisfying pregnancy experience, and every life is treated with value.

“As I saw my daughters and daughter-in-law start having children, I realized that gosh, you know, we’re making every birth seem like a staff code in an emergency room. And that’s not what it is,” Dr. Calvin said.

Minnesota Birth Center offers what Dr. Calvin calls a friendlier approach to maternity care, providing the midwifery model of care with continuity of care provided in a nearby hospital if needed. Like other freestanding birth centers, this one offers a calmer, home-like environment so the mother can labor and deliver naturally, without interventions and interruptions. The center offers spacious birthing tubs, family beds, in-suite restrooms and showers, birth slings, nitrous oxide, kitchens, clinic rooms, and warm, homemade bread for postpartum.

The center shares its self-pay patient pricing for its BirthBundle online, including newborn and mother care. The bundle includes facility fees, exams, prenatal care, ultrasound, etc. The estimated cost for the entire bundle without any complications is about $12,700. Dr. Calvin said the birth center offers not only a lower cost than hospital with its bundled pricing, but quality, life-affirming care that puts the families’ comforts and preferences over cultural expectations.

Dr. Calvin encourages anyone interested in experiencing birth centers for their growing family to explore the database of the Commission for the Accreditation of Birth Centers’ database to find accredited birth centers across the country.