After 20 years attending births out-of-hospital, midwife Katherine Bramhall carefully surveyed available choices in maternity care providers and settings in both Vermont and New Hampshire. What she found was that available choices are filled with gaps, and options are rapidly dwindling.
While receiving babies and attending births in the hospital setting, certified nurse midwife Meghan Sperry witnessed the same troubling occurrences and the vital need for immediate change.
The collaboration between Meghan and Katherine was initiated in an attempt to improve the landscape of birth in Vermont and New Hampshire. This collaboration quickly evolved into a partnership built on their first-hand assessments of maternity care shortfalls in the Upper Valley region as well as their shared belief that every individual deserves access to quality, equitable, and respectful maternity care. With increasing maternal mortality and morbidity rates in the United States, the recent consolidation and closing of maternity units leaves the Upper Valley community and beyond with limited choices for care.
For Katherine and Meghan, the clear solution was to create a new choice in maternity care: an independent, midwife-led, freestanding birth center.
Gentle Landing Midwifery and Birth Center is a free-standing birth center and is based on the need that we all want to be seen and cared for as a whole person; that our health exists within the context of our entire life history. Gentle Landing Midwifery and Birth Center holds this wholeness as essential to uncompromising health care. We are deeply committed to caring for you from this position.
Why a freestanding birth center in Hanover and Lebanon, NH?
nice to meet you!
Katherine Bramhall
midwife (LMvt, NHCM)
Katherine Bramhall is a certified professional midwife, licensed in Vermont and New Hampshire. She is a graduate of a nationally accredited midwifery school and has practiced home birth midwifery in Vermont and New Hampshire since 2008. She blends her philosophy of kindness and acceptance with her depth of knowledge and life experience to provide gentle, peaceful and safe home birth midwifery care.
Katherine blends over 30 years of birth experience in a wide variety of settings and situations, a compassionate heart, deep listening and a scientific mind to offer comprehensive, creative and individualized care to each family she is blessed to work with. She is a fierce advocate for informed choice, committed partnership in care and evidence-based midwifery.
Meghan Sperry
midwife (APRN, CNM)
Meghan has many years of valuable experiences blended from both in-hospital and out-of-hospital midwifery. She graduated with her Masters of Science in Nursing from the University of Cincinnati in 2010. She worked the first 4 years in a low risk hospital doing full scope midwifery, then moved into a combination of management and working in a high risk center. She opened her private practice in 2018 and partnered as an owner and builder of Gentle Landing Birth Center in 2019. She offers full scope midwifery services at Gentle Landing spanning from puberty though menopause.
"I am here to pour my heart and soul into a community where the word CARE is the center of what brings us all together."
"Never Underestimate the Power of Your Inner Self."
-Meghan
"I feel like given the choice, I could never go back to a hospital setting. Nothing prepared me for how beautiful and calm (amidst the birth chaos) my birth would truly be at the birth center."
"The wisdom, love, and years of experience that the Gentle Landing midwives bring to their clients is unlike any other experience you will have in this area. My husband and I always felt heard, seen, respected, and loved when it came to our care throughout this pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. Bringing a baby into your life is so much more than the physical act of pregnancy and birth, it’s about your life and your family and the well being of all members in it."
"I knew right away when I found out I was pregnant that I wanted a more personal experience than what is afforded to women opting to have routine checkups. The midwives are approachable, knowledgeable, nurturing and do an amazing job helping you journey into parenthood."
"...I also appreciate fully, the intimate care and regard the midwives gave me, from encouraging my full openness to my emotions, physical experience and all realms of energetic health and well-being. I feel better prepared on this journey as they’ve walked along with me."
"The midwives were amazing during my birth experience. They not only helped me birth my baby, but they nurtured my soul as well. The midwives at Gentle Landing give the whole woman care, not only physical care, but spiritual care. I couldn't have been happier with my birth experience."
"There are so many wonderful things I can say about my birth experience at Gentle Landing, but I think the best way to sum up the love, grace, tenderness, and wisdom is to simply say this: they almost make me want to have a third child, just to be able to visit with them more often... almost!"
"Working with Gentle Landing has been an absolute dream. I appreciate that they are both supporting and loving while also confident and matter of fact. It is clear they live for what they do, making sure clients are well-informed and supporting women in their birth choices once they have all the facts from every standpoint. Thank you for all that you do and for standing up for women, their bodies and their choices."
"I've never known someone so briefly and loved so deeply as the midwives at Gentle Landing. Ever. Thank you for your lovely card for my baby's birthday. I will always, in all ways, be thankful that your hands gave her to me."
"I came to the midwives at Gentle Landing a couple of months pregnant with my second child. They gave me not only excellent prenatal care in a medical sense but also gave me courage and rallied community support for me in becoming a single mother to my new baby. They were always available for any questions or needs I had and provided amazing support during labor for pain relief/management. I feel blessed to have had them attend the birth of my beautiful daughter."
"We are so lucky to have found your practice. The peaceful and loving demeanor at the birth center is contagious. You-all helped me be incredibly confident in labor, and I know my husband would have had a very hard time without your support of him. In the end, even though I had to go to the hospital for my birth, your strength beside us reinforced our optimism, patience and courage which gave us such a positive start in our lives and our new family."
"The team at Gentle Landing were like angels tending to all that needed tending to... so that I could labor. I had nothing to worry about but birthing and welcoming our newest little one into our lives. Once you have your baby in your arms, they literally tuck you in with your family and tend to EVERY detail. Thank God for this Choice in Birth."
"The midwives listened with such skill and intuition; they connected with our entire family, not just me and baby. Many friends back home were so uncertain when they heard we were planning a birth center birth, and I just couldn't explain how I had never felt more safe. "You just need to meet these midwives...you would totally understand," I said time and time again."
"I arrived at Gentle Landing at seven months pregnant. My partner and I were brand new to the Upper Valley. Our sweet boy was born peacefully and respectfully at the Birth Center after just a few short hours of labor. Our family is wholly impressed and forever touched by the love and care we received from our midwives!"
"As a first time mother, I could not have asked for better care in my pregnancy, birthing and motherhood journey. I feel extremely lucky to be part of the Gentle Landing family.."
