Today we’d like to introduce you to Jami Hain.
Jami, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I have always loved birth and women’s health and after the birth of my two sons (in the hospital), my sister had a home birth with a midwife. After attending that birth, I knew I wanted to be a midwife. I attended nursing school and eventually worked as a nurse at Nativiti Family Birth Center for approximately 10 years under the supervision of Melanie Dossey, the original owner.
In 2009, the Lord made it apparent that I was supposed to continue my journey to obtaining my Master’s degree and become a certified nurse-midwife. In 2012 I graduated from Frontier Nursing University with my midwifery degree at the age of 51. I tell people all the time that “it’s never too late to do what you love”!
Through all of this, I never imagined that we would own a birth center, but Melanie Dossey had other ideas. She was ready to retire, and in 2014 my husband and I became first time business owners. I am so passionate about providing this personal, family centered care to the community, that buying this business in order to continue to provide this option to the community was a no brainer. Nativiti continues to provide the same high-quality, evidence based care that has been the cornerstone of the business since its inception.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
I didn’t go into this thinking it would be easy, but there have been times it has been much harder than expected. Being an owner of a well established, busy midwifery practice while continuing to work full time as a midwife has been quite challenging. I had never owned a business before and had to find time to learn about administrative responsibilities while continuing to see clients daily.
Learning to navigate the medical insurance world has also been challenging. It saddens me that we have to ask families to pay so much out of pocket because insurance companies don’t want to pay a fair fee for our services. My amazing team has been one of the highlights of my business ownership experience. They have loved me and supported me and have been so patient with my knowledge deficits as I’ve learned how to run this business.
Please tell us about the business.
Nativiti Family Birth Center and Women’s Health Associates is a midwife owned and operated freestanding birth center. We offer personalized care for women’s health and pregnancy. We embrace the midwifery model of care, which allows each client the opportunity to have evidence-based, family-centered care. This model of care encourages shared decision making through education and partnership between the client and their midwife. Women can seek care from their Certified Nurse-Midwife (CNM) at Nativiti over the lifespan… From menstruation through menopause.
We are one of only two birth centers in the Houston and surrounding areas (there are approximately 15 total) that is accredited by the Commission for the Accreditation of Birth Centers (CABC). We have maintained this standard for 22 of our 25 years in business.
We have also earned the American Association of Birth Centers (AABC) Best Practice designation for the past ten years. We have also been honored with the ACNM Four Core and Triple Aim designations which are given to practices that support women, families and physiologic birth in the areas of low induction of labor rates (<2%), low primary cesarean rates (<4%), low episiotomy rates (<1%), and high breastfeeding rates (>98%). Out of the 257 practices that submitted data in 2018, only 28 practices (Nativiti being one of those) received this honor.
We believe that our passion for empowering and supporting women and families through education and individualized, evidence-based care as well as our accreditation are what sets us apart from other providers and birth centers.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
That’s a tough question. I have learned from every experience over the past five years and wouldn’t trade those lessons. The only thing I would have done differently would have been to educate myself better on the administrative aspect of owning a business and would likely hire a business coach for advice from the very beginning.
Contact Info:
- Address: Nativiti Family Birth Center
26614 Oak Ridge Dr
The Woodlands, TX 77380 - Website: www.nativiti.com
- Phone: 281.296.2333
- Email: birthinfo@nativiti.com
- Facebook: https://www.
facebook.com/ NativitiFamilyBirthCenter/
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