Midwifery Model of Care
We prioritize building trusting relationships and empowering you with the knowledge to make informed choices every step of the way.
What We Do
Shared Decision-Making
Empowering clients with evidence-based information, respectful guidance, and support to make decisions that align with their values.
Trust in the Natural Process of Birth
Supporting physiologic, low-intervention birth by honoring the body’s natural ability and minimizing unnecessary medical interventions.
Personalized Care
Centering care around you and your family through longer visits, active listening, and continuity with a trusted midwifery team.
Our Mission
To transform healthcare, because families deserve better.Â
At Minnesota Birth Center, our mission is to provide safe, evidence-based care that honors the natural process of birth. We build trusting relationships through personalized, respectful, and inclusive midwifery services. By empowering individuals with knowledge and support, we help families thrive through pregnancy, birth, and beyond.
We believe midwifery care and birth center care plays a key role in solving our country’s maternal health crisis and should be the norm, like in many other developed countries.
Our Story
The Minnesota Birth Center (MBC) opened its doors in June of 2012, after nearly four years of dedicated planning. Our founders, Steve and Cindy Calvin, were driven by a singular vision: to create a new model for maternity and newborn care that wholeheartedly embraces the natural process of pregnancy and birth while providing a seamless and satisfying safety net when complications occur.
Cindy Calvin, a mother of three and grandmother to eleven, embraced normal birth in the 1980s, even while giving birth in a traditional hospital setting. Her husband, Dr. Steve Calvin, has spent his medical career caring for high-risk pregnancies. Throughout his work, he developed deep admiration and respect for nurse-midwives who serve and empower mothers to have the best birth possible.
Motivated by the complexities, high costs, and fragmentation of the existing maternity care system, Dr. Calvin sought collaboration with like-minded nurse-midwives and OB physicians who shared a commitment to team-based care. This collaboration resulted in the design of a midwife-led model that provides care in independent birth centers. Crucially, this model maintains continuity of care through established hospital privileges and strong relationships with nearby hospitals, ensuring advanced medical support is readily available when necessary.
It has been a long journey with many obstacles and detours, but Providence has rewarded patience and persistence. More than 4,500 babies have been born under the MBC model in Minneapolis and its younger sibling in St. Paul (including seven of the eleven grandchildren mentioned above). We are grateful for the first 13 years and remain committed to providing high-quality, joyful, and empowering care to support parents through the profound experience of welcoming new life.
