Sacred Roots Birth and Wellness Center

"AVOID AT ALL COSTS!I was admitted to SR at 5cm dilated with a cervical lip present at time of admission.They had told me previously that my baby was posterior and that it was likely we would have to do a hospital transfer as these births tend to have trouble progressing but then proceeded to ignore every indication that something was wrong.From the beginning my midwife January Skye McDonald was disconnected spending a large portion of time in an office on her laptop.My husband had to retrieve her to support me multiple times during my labor.My water broke around 7pm on the 29th and it had meconium present.I started pushing at around 8pm and didn't transfer to Riley until almost 3:30am.I was in excruciating pain for the large majority of my labor there, screaming and crying for hours with no comfort from the medical staff except the occasional affirmation.The cervical lip was present the entire time and by the time I arrived at the hospital it was swollen shut.I received an epidural and my daughter was born at 9:39am.When she was born she was unresponsive and blue, the cord was wrapped around her neck 360 degrees, she had severe shoulder dystocia, and she had to be resuscitated. She spent 12 days in the NICU where she was placed on a hypothermic treatment blanket for 72 hours, was given antibiotics for sepsis, and suffered an acute kidney injury. She also suffered a minor brain injury from being oxygen deprived for so long. If we had waited to be transferred for any longer she would not have made it. I have spoken to medical professionals at Riley Hospital and all of them were horrified at my treatment. Many of them told me that when the cervical lip didn't go away and I had meconium present in my waters, January should insisted on a hospital transfer.Not only did she not suggest it, she never told me anything was going wrong or was an issue. She was dismissive of me the entire birth experience and even suggested I load up in the car and drive 30 minutes to Riley at 9cm dilated instead of calling an ambulance. When I brought this to Sacred Roots attention, the response was awful. I wrote an email explaining in detail my experience and that I wanted to see if we could come to some sort of resolution, and sent it to the owner, Angela Lyttle. She wrote back a very emotionless and dismissive email, but did say she would meet with me to debrief my records. I asked her what her goals for the meeting would be, since I had a feeling it would become less about resolution and more about trying to convince me what happened was normal. She then ignored my email for almost 2 weeks, but responded almost immediately when I sent her a follow up email. She then took back her offer to meet with me, sent me links for therapy, and a link to a forum (not a medically accredited one either) about how a cervical lip is normal. I then told her I wanted to see my records from Sacred Roots and to forward them to me. That took about another week to receive, and when I did get it the record was incomplete. They withheld every page about my labor experience at Sacred Roots, only attaching my hospital records and prenatal records. I sent her an email telling her that the records were incomplete, and that I wanted the entire record that I had requested. Once again, I was ignored for almost 2 weeks. I sent another follow up email and the owner responded, telling me I needed to contact the clinical director. She essentially couldn't care less about my experience and shoved me off onto someone else. I called the clinical director, who was very kind and was the only person at the facility who showed any kind of empathy for my situation. She held a meeting with the owner and admin team to discuss my bill and my situation and sent me the complete record. They ended up deciding a 10% discount was appropriate despite everything. Every person I worked with except the clinical director was unprofessional, lacked empathy and understanding, and in my opinion, lacked the bedside manor or medical knowledge and expertise they need to be working with patients."

"I had my third daughter at Sacred Roots after one hospital birth and one homebirth. My previous daughter was a precipitous labor and I'm also advanced maternal age but none of this put them off from having me as a client. I was particularly impressed that I was never told to do anything. It was always a joint decision between me and the midwife after she had presented me with the latest research on the topic. I wouldn't be surprised if the midwives read medical journals in their spare time for fun. They seemed very up to date with the current state of the midwifery field. Throughout my pregnancy I was asked very specific questions about how I wanted the birth to be. These questions started from very early on in the checkups which was good because we were able to cover everything. During the labor my midwife was great and seemed to trust my ability to labor well and birth the baby. I couldn't get comfortable for a while so I asked her for suggestions on positions and ultimately the position she suggested was the most comfortable and my baby came a few contractions later. My midwife seemed to be able to read my body and the situation better than I could. She knew exactly when the baby was about to come, even when I didn't! Throughout my pregnancy, birth and postpartum period the midwives respected me and my previous experience with birthing and breastfeeding. They didn't treat me like a first time mother. I highly recommend Sacred Roots."

"I had wonderful pregnancy care. But the midwife that was on call for my labor & delivery was horrible. She was indecisive and did not make me feel heard. In fact she disregarded my intuition which lead to horrible situations. She sat in the break room the majority of my labor and let my mom and husband do all the work of supporting me. She would suggest for me to go into positions that caused me more pain and I’d always just end up going back to what felt most natural to me. Instead of making a decisive decision to do a episiotomy when my baby was stuck & crowned for 40 min, she just let me keep pushing like that until he came out. I would’ve much rather been given the choice of an episiotomy than all the 3rd degree (almost 4th degree tearing) I had. I would’ve been much better off in a hospital. The midwives here failed to catch that my blood type clashed with my sons. He ended up in the NICU one day after birth for high bilirubin levels and ALL the doctors were astounded that they missed that and did not give me a medication. Then 3 weeks pp I had a fever of 103. But the nurse and midwives wrote it off as a virus. Over and over again they dismissed me to be evaluated over the course of a week. Then I asked my doctor friend about it. Told her my symptoms and she told me to rush to the ER. I was admitted and put on multiple serious of antibiotics for a serious uterine infection. If we had had records of the phone calls of the midwives and nurse dismissing me, we would’ve sued them. I have loads of emotional and physical trauma because of this place. DONT go here and at all costs avoid the midwife Sky if you do."

"It’s taken me quite awhile to decide if I want to publicly post about my experience here or not. For one, I can say most of the staff were very nice and welcoming. BUT, the communication was terrible. I was not given all the information I needed when it came to financials/billing while I was being seen from 30 weeks until I delivered at 39 weeks. I was given a summary of what I would owe out of pocket based on if my insurance was in network or out of network based on the information they dug up from my deductible and plan info. I had a slip of paper that gave me two totals and was asked to make a payment of 1/2 (at 36 weeks) of the in network amount because that’s how they were going to bill my insurance because they were “pretty sure” it was in network and my other half payment would be due by 38 weeks. After having my daughter, and knowing I clearly had already had her at the birth center… I get invoiced for out of network costs, AND the delivery suite because supposedly that’s completely separately billed and charged, which I was 100% NEVER informed or that charge was never brought up in my 9 week course being seen there so it wasn’t part of the costs written on the slip I would of been responsible for that my insurance wouldn’t cover either in or out of network. Mind you the other half of that payment I mentioned earlier…. Was never asked for until I had my daughter and invoiced. I also did some digging with my insurance company and realized they were billing my insurance before I had my daughter so they knew way before I had her that I had an “out of network” insurance and what all my costs would be. Instead they led me to believe I would owe a significantly much lower amount until after I delivered. If I would have known this, I would have delivered naturally at a hospital, which is where I work, and I could have paid 1/4 of the cost and not been blindsided financially. I had initially came to the birth center for a different experience from my first born hospital experience and wanted something a little more personalized but this mess ontop of having postpartum hemorrhage and complications did not help prevent me from having postpartum depression. So on that note, I’ll never go here again nor will I recommend this place to anyone."

"I absolutely LOVED my experience at Sacred Roots! The most caring team ever. Every appointment they blocked out so much time for me to ask questions or talk about any concerns or issues I had. I always felt so cared for and valued. I cannot imagine what my birth would have looked like without my birth team. I had strong opinions about what I wanted while I was in labor and they respected everything I asked and supported me and my husband in every way possible. And not to mention the postpartum support was amazing! I love them all so much and cannot wait to have more babies here in the future!"