Judge blocks birth center rules from taking effect

Montgomery Circuit Court Judge Greg Griffin on Saturday blocked the Alabama Department of Public Health from enforcing hospital licensing rules on birth centers that at least two centers said had prevented them from operating.

The three-page order prevents the department from “refusing to timely license (including but not limited to refusing to timely issue temporary or interim licenses to) freestanding birth centers operating in the midwifery model of care … that can demonstrate substantial compliance with the standards set out by the American Association of Birth Centers and can satisfy the remaining statutory requirements.”

The ruling came after attorneys representing birth centers and the Alabama Department of Public Health clashed in a tense six-hour hearing Friday over new department regulations that birth center personnel say are impossible to operate under.

In a statement Saturday morning, Whitney White, an attorney with the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, which represented birth centers in the case, said they were pleased with the ruling.

“We are pleased that the court put an end to the Alabama Department of Public Health’s unlawful and dangerous de facto ban on birth centers, allowing the dedicated providers in this case to offer pregnant Alabamians the essential health care they need in birth centers throughout the state,” she wrote in a statement.

It was not immediately clear if the state would appeal Griffin’s ruling. A message seeking comment was left with the Department of Public Health. The regulations were due to take effect Oct. 15.

The new regulations require birth centers — facilities that provide an option in between a home birth and hospital birth — to submit to oversight by a physician or medical director. The rules would also require them to be within 30 minutes of a hospital with OB-GYN services and to apply for hospital licenses. Birth centers do not meet the criteria of hospitals under law.

Birth center officials say their facilities fill a critical need in a state with poor maternal health outcomes and argue the regulation is meant to shut them down.