The Birth Centre at Rossendale is located within Rossendale Primary Health Care Centre. There is a midwife clinic five days a week providing antenatal and postnatal appointments with a community midwife, as well as a consultant clinic once a week, and scanning facilities.
The birth centre also offers an intrapartum care facility for labouring women staffed by community/birth centre midwives who are on call to open the birth centre when a woman is in labour.
A risk assessment must have been carried out prior (ideally before 36wks) to check suitability for birthing in this low-risk birth environment, as well as discussing the practicalities of transferring to the main Obstetric unit within Burnley General Teaching Hospital should the need arise.
In labour, the woman will first contact Burnley Birth Centre and arrange to meet a Midwife for initial assessment at Rossendale Birth Centre. For Security reasons (especially during the night) two midwives would usually attend to meet the woman.
You will be given a time on the phone that the midwife will likely arrive at the birth centre so they can be set up ready for your arrival. During the day, midwives will be relocated from other tasks to facilitate the births at Rossendale Birth Centre. However, during the night this service is staffed using on-call midwives (community midwives based at Burnley/Blackburn birth centres) who will be called in to open the building for you. It is worth bearing in mind some of the midwives will have to commute to get to the birth centre, and so you are advised to call in a timely manner to inform them that labour has started.
This allows an opportunity for a midwife to complete a triage process to advise you of the best time to make your way to the birth centre when this is appropriate. On the rare occasion births at Rossendale Birth Centre cannot be facilitated due to high activity within the unit, staffing issues or safety concerns; you will be advised to attend Burnley Birth Centre as an alternative which is an alongside unit within the main hospital.