Mt Sinai West has plans to close the Birthing Center in January to create more private postpartum rooms. If it closes there will only be one in-hospital birthing center in all of New York City.  NYC families deserve autonomy and choice when deciding where to give birth.  Help save the MSW Birthing Center!

To The Leadership of Mount Sinai Health System and Mount Sinai West:

(Chairman Peter W. May; President and CEO Kenneth L. Davis; President Evan L. Flatlow, MD; Senior Vice President Margaret Coughlin; Interim Chair Michael Brodman, MD)

We, the undersigned, urge you to reverse your decision to close the Mount Sinai West Birthing Center. We are mothers, daughters, fathers, sons, grandmothers, grandfathers, caretakers, friends, family, advocates and allies connected to, born at or who have given birth at the Birthing Center.

The Birthing Center is a vital part of maternal health in NYC and has a rich history that should be preserved. It has, for decades, been a healthy, safe and welcoming environment for families to give birth in. It offers high quality evidence based care for women with low risk pregnancies: intermittent fetal monitoring, hydrotherapy, freedom of movement, and attentive nursing care by exceptional RNs. Birthing Center outcomes are consistently excellent. Demand for such care is high, yet supply in NYC is disappointingly low.

Today, when women’s health and women’s rights are under attack, a decision that undermines both high birthing standards and women’s choice and autonomy is disheartening and threatening to the reputation of exceptional medical care we expect from the Mount Sinai Health System and Sinai West. We need Mount Sinai to be a leader in maternal care and birthing options.

The options for in-hospital birth center care are extremely limited in New York City. The Birthing Center is an enormous draw, bringing families from all across the city to Mt. Sinai West. The hospital currently enjoys a strong reputation as a destination for safe, low intervention, physiologic birth. Do not destroy this reputation by closing the Birthing Center. We want to continue to birth our babies at your institution, but if the Birthing Center closes we will begin looking elsewhere for care.

New York City's parents and expectant parents deserve better. We call upon you to convene an emergency task force to find an immediate solution to keep the Birthing Center open and fully staffed for years to come.

Our children’s health, our mothers' health and our city’s health depends on a reversal of your decision. Instead of turning your backs on New York’s expectant and to be expectant parents, we ask that you have the vision to lead by keeping the Birthing Center open. Instead of closing the door on decades of good medical policy and healthy births, we call on you to open the door to dialogue to preserve the Birthing Center today.

Sincerely: