Officials break ground on Black midwife-led Chicago South Side Birth Center
Expectant moms on the South Side of Chicago will soon have a new facility to bring their babies into the world.
Officials broke ground on Tuesday for the Chicago South Side Birth Center, a Black midwife-led birth center at the corner of 83rd and South Shore Drive in the South Chicago neighborhood. It's the South Side's first-ever dedicated birth center and the first nonprofit birth center in Illinois.
The South Side currently has only four hospitals that offer maternity services.
"Today is special. Can you all feel it? Yes, and it's not just because we're breaking ground, it's because we're standing in the middle of something that should have always existed," said Liz Dozier Senghor, CEO of Chicago Beyond, the nonprofit behind the birth center.
The $7.4 million project received a $3.3 million grant from the city.
The facility will offer prenatal care, birth services, postpartum care, lactation support, holistic reproductive health care, childbirth education, and wellness programming.
With maternal mortality rate on the rise, the goal is to make sure Black mothers and their babies are safe and healthy.