Spotlight Series

Guest Name: Loretta Shupe

Credentials:  CPM, RN – My Family Birth Center

Loretta Shupe: you know it started way back when I was a youth I always envision a day when maybe our economy would go down and people wouldn’t be able to go to the hospital to have their babies and that they would be panicked like what am I going to do so I made it my life’s quest to learn the skills of helping women be able to give birth outside of the hospital and so that I’d be able to come and say don’t worry we’ll get through this together there’s there’s way to to have a safe birth

Dr. Betty DeLass: amazing amazing that’s so sweet and then what do you think makes you different or your company different

Loretta Shupe: so when I went and got my training later after our kids were married and gone I learned about the certified professional Midwife and I could have gone either route I had my RN my BSN I could have gone the certified nurse Midwife route or the certified professional I chose the professional route because it taught Community birthing and that’s what I wanted to learn so as I was in that training I heard the stories of women who would come in and say okay I had an epidural birth I didn’t like it I want to try something different on this pregnancy and um the people I trained with had birth centers and I could see how valuable they were especially for the dads because number one the dads were worried about safety for their wife and for their baby and so when I finished my training I said to my husband you know if we really want to bless the community we’ll build a birth center and he thought about it for about a month and then he said let’s do it so we got the Ogden Birth Center built and later on we added the Layton Center which was my goal was to make this more accessible to everyone and so what makes this unusual is that we made it state-of-the-art we work with the state we were able to license for three birth rooms which is unheard of and we got a national accreditation we’re the only birth Center in Utah that’s nationally accredited and so we blend the the learning and the science with the natural being able to give a blend of helping the mom and baby be safe and have a wonderful quiet calm atmosphere and with choices and be able to have their baby in a in a nice environment

Dr. Betty DeLass: amazing I love that that’s so great and then who would you say is an ideal fit for you

Loretta Shupe: so for us we have a a variety of clients but ones who take charge of their life where they want to learn they want to grow and they want to make their own decisions and even though we’re nationally accredited part of that agreement is that clients have choice and even though things are offered they can decline them and um so people that are independent thinkers they health conscious they are careful that they eat a good healthy uh variety they also like to be fit and they um are active in their life and they’re just free thinkers

Dr. Betty DeLass: well that awesome and then what does the process look like to work with you or one of your midw

Loretta Shupe: yeah so the first process is just to come and see see what we have take a tour meet the Midwife that’s on for that day and ask their questions and we get them in touch with our biller because we do take a lot of insurances and um then they would book their first appointment when they’re about eight weeks along or later we take people who are um still trying to find their ideal fit up to 34 weeks and then um the other thing is they try to pay ahead and that way they don’t have to think about the bill after the birth so some births you know they get build after and they they get charges they were they weren’t expecting but ours are all upfront and they tend to save about 50% compared to a hospital birth

Dr. Betty DeLass: that’s that’s so great okay and then in the grand scheme of things what does recovery look like in your lens and your like ethos through that um when you transition from post part um just kind of walk us through what does recovery look like

Loretta Shupe: yeah so it’s quite different um so for the first hour or so the mom and dad get to bombed with her baby eventually uh she gets to do breastfeeding she gets to um have a nice meal that we’ve prepared we do an in-depth newborn exam on the baby and then as we establish the mom stable baby stable couple are able to leave which usually takes about three or four hours and then from there we come to their home a couple of days later and do the tests that uh would have been done in the hospital some of the tests are ideally done 48 hours after the birth so that’s our goal is to come and meet with them about them and we check with the mom and baby again and see how they’re doing and then they come back to us for a two week visit and six week visit and then in the middle if they need to be seen we’re happy to see them goad it’s interesting a lot of moms have said I am surprised my recovery is easier than when I had an epidural birth

Dr. Betty DeLass: yes that happens a lot right yeah yeah awesome thank you for sharing that okay what is something that most people don’t know about you or think that you should they should you think that they should know either about you your services Midwifery health and wellness birth like it can be any of those things um what’s one little nugget that you can share with the audience

Loretta Shupe: so with a birth with us they don’t need to be hooked to a monitor and have external monitoring of the baby’s heart tones we’re able to just check with a Doppler and um that gives the mother a lot of freedom to be able to get in and out of the water to be able to walk the Halls and have the birth more the way they like it

Dr. Betty DeLass: awesome amazing thank you um and then is there anything that special that you want to promote to the audience watch watching this at all

Loretta Shupe: mostly just come and see we’ve got two offices that are very accessible and we would love to show you around

Dr. Betty DeLass: yeah I love that you you’ve always been open and welcoming with that of like come look come check it out so great okay and then final last question here what is the anything that you want to be known for

Loretta Shupe: I would like to be known for someone who blessed the community and helped kind of set things in a better pattern um I would like to see Community birthing just become a Norm just like Hospital Birthing is and let couples choose and and not get any um unusual Flack from family or whoever with Which choice they made um I also feel strongly to be able to provide education for couples and so build into our package we have classes like um nutrition breastfeeding child birth and then pelvic floor and that’s where you come in Betty

Dr. Betty DeLass: Y and besides that we have a little unit that’s connected to our birth center which uh clients can come and get pelvic floor care through your company yeah Dr MD’s there it’s great it’s such a great thing yeah yeah awesome well thank you is there anything else that you wanted to say before I ask the last question of where to find you

Loretta Shupe: nope

Dr. Betty DeLass: okay great and where can we find you where what’s your website are you on social media anything like that

Loretta Shupe: so our website is myfamilybirthcenter.com we’re on Facebook with that same name and Instagram you can find us there we’re having a lot of fun

Dr. Betty DeLass: amazing I would agree the the space is is is calm and collected and like peaceful and all the things like that it’s wonderful so thank you so much for your time today Loretta thank you for sharing your insights into your world and um we’ll see you soon

Loretta Shupe: okay thank you Betty