If you expect or hope to start a family, the Wood Buffalo Woman & Baby Care Association wants to hear from you.
The association is partnering with the Alberta government with the goal of building a birth centre in the region.
Co-chair of the Wood Buffalo Woman & Baby Care Association, Jennifer Stephenson explains its purpose.
“A birth centre is a free-standing medical clinic. A midwife would practice out of the birth centre, and then for people who wanted to use the midwife for their birth, they could use the birth centre to have their birth, so they wouldn’t have to have a home birth or hospital birth.”
The Wood Buffalo Woman & Baby Care Association encourages new and expectant mothers, and fathers, to take their online survey.
Stephenson says a birth centre could provide hard to find services such as grief counselling, chiropractic, and prenatal care.
The goal of the survey is to know which services residents require and see what resources are available.
Fellow Wood Buffalo Woman & Baby Care Association co-chair, Kayla Lushman says they are looking at possible spaces.
“We probably will have a temporary location to begin while we move towards having a location that would have all of the services. So, essentially we’re going to building an airplane while we’re flying it.”
Considered a non-profit group, most of the resources at the birth centre would come at no cost to the clients.
Furthermore, one of the goals of the association is to open a retail store for babies, toddlers, and young children.
This would help supplement funding for the centre.
The birth centre survey is a community resource, and the Wood Buffalo Woman & Baby Care Association hopes families of all stripes will submit responses.
