Written for graduate students and professionals in the fields of midwifery, women's health, and public health, this book explores the freestanding birth center model in the United States from its conception by pioneering midwives and others in the early 1970s through the present day. Compared to the hospital-based birth model, the freestanding birth center offers a better documented, healthier, more cost-effective, and more humane way to care for women and newborns, consistent with the goals of health care legislation. This rapidly expanding model of care has many positive implications for...