To celebrate its third birthday, Manassas Midwifery and Women’s Health Center hosted a Mother and Baby Expo at Manassas Mall on Aug. 18. 

Exhibitors ranged from doula Sanita Previl’s Mother the Mother Birth Services and Hannah Neas’ The Cloth Nook, a Northern Virginia supplier of cloth diapers and natural baby products to NOVA Natural Birth Center, which offers home birth, birth center birth and water birth in Chantilly, VA.

Certified Nurse Midwife Kathleen McClelland spoke to Manassas City Council on Aug. 13 to share the good news with elected officials that Manassas Midwifery, a successful city-based small business, has received a $195,720 grant from the Potomac Health Foundation to open a satellite office in Dumfries, and to offer a CenteringParenting® program at the new location. 

Manassas Midwifery pioneered CenteringPregnancy® care in Manassas in 2009, thanks to a generous grant from the March of Dimes.  CenteringParenting continues well-woman and well-baby care in a group setting through the first year after birth.  Centering care is an innovative group care model that strives to improve birth and early childhood outcomes.

Also exhibiting at the Expo was the new Prince William chapter of Birth Matters Virginia, which meets the second Thursday of every month, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Manassas Midwifery, 8425 Dorsey Circle, #102 in Manassas.  However, in place of the Sept. 13 meeting, Co-Directors Marilyn Alger and Sharon Hammon-Boomer are hosting a screening of the film “Freedom for Birth,” on Sept. 20 at 6 p.m. Manassas Midwifery is one of 1,000 sites worldwide that will host the international debut of the film, which calls for reform to the world’s maternity systems so that human rights violations stop and women are afforded real choices as to how and where the give birth.

Certified Nurse Midwife Sheila Mathis and her husband, Derrick, an ordained minister, are the co-founders of Manassas Midwifery & Women's Health Center, which opened its doors in August 2009 to provide midwifery and women’s health care for both insured women who prefer the services of midwives and women who are uninsured, under-insured or Medicaid eligible.

For more information about Manassas Midwifery, visit their website at www.manassasmidwifery.com.