Asheville nonprofit birthing center would be NC's second

ASHEVILLE – Young parents, Rebecca and Evan Gurney concede that having a child for the first time is terrifying. But for the North Asheville couple that fact doesn't mean childbirth isn't universally an intimate, even sacred, procedure, something enhanced by the holistic approach of birth centers. The decisions parents make about birth are indicators of how they want to start a family and their lives together, Rebecca Gurney said.

For their first child, the Gurneys went to North Carolina's only nonprofit birth center in Chapel Hill, where they delivered with the assistance of a certified nurse midwife. The relaxed environment and holistic approach empowered them to feel controlled and capable in the delivery room, they said. It's the kind of setting that an Asheville group wants to see in the planned WNC Birth Center, which could open in 2016, making it the state's second nonprofit center for childbirth supervised by licensed nurse midwives.

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