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Maternity Services

Group Health has been offering maternity services since 1946, when the first Cooperative baby was born at St. Luke's Hospital in Seattle. Since then, we have grown to serve families throughout Washington state and North Idaho. We want to serve you, too!

Also see: Family Beginnings Birth Center

Choice and Support

Group Health's maternity programs are designed with your special needs in mind. We offer a wide range of choices, from midwifery care to specialized obstetrical care and from home birth to hospital care in your community. Whether you want an unmedicated childbirth or an epidural as soon as possible, a lot of support or just a minimum of routine prenatal visits, we make it easy to choose the providers and support you want.

During your pregnancy, you have a choice of providers:

• An obstetrician/gynecologist
• A certified nurse-midwife
• Your primary care physician
• Licensed midwives who do home births for low-risk women

Contracted Hospitals and Providers

Members who live in the Seattle area can deliver their babies at our Family Beginnings Birth Center on the Capitol Hill campus. Members in other areas usually have their babies at nearby community hospitals.

Group Health contracts with hospitals throughout Washington state and North Idaho to provide convenient birth services for all our members. Group Health doctors and certified nurse-midwives deliver babies at specialized birth units in some of these hospitals.

For instance, Group Health Ob/Gyn physicians and midwives deliver babies at Overlake Hospital in Bellevue and St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma. In Olympia, Group Health Ob/Gyn physicians, midwives, and family medicine physicians deliver babies at St. Peter Hospital. Group Health family medicine physicians also deliver babies at Harrison Hospital in Silverdale and at Providence Everett Medical Center in Everett.

In Spokane, Group Health family medicine physicians deliver babies at Holy Family Hospital and, along with Group Health midwives, at Sacred Heart Medical Center.

At other hospitals, Group Health contracts with community physicians and CNMs to provide maternity services. Obstetrical providers work closely with pediatricians and home health services in the communities Group Health serves.

Education and Classes

In the Seattle area, Group Health and its partner, Great Starts Birth & Family Education, offer prenatal and baby care classes. Your partner or support person is invited to attend all classes with you, and individual teaching is available to those who cannot attend the scheduled group sessions. Some classes have a registration fee.