Dickson mum Tammy Pinto is one of the many hundreds of women who have given birth at the North Canberra Hospital Birth Centre - formerly the Calvary Birth Centre - over the last decade.
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The birth centre was opened in March, 2014, and the 10th anniversary will be celebrated with a community get-together at the John Knight Memorial Park in Belconnen on Sunday, May 5, the International Day of the Midwife.
Since the centre opened, more than 2500 babies had been born there.
Tammy Pinto had her three daughters at the birth centre - Jemima, 7; Samantha, 5; and Anika, just three months ago.
For each birth, she had the same midwife, Cindy-Lou Aiken, who has been a midwife for 38 years and with the birth centre since the day it opened.
Tammy said having the same midwife before, at and after the birth was a big drawcard for her to use the birth centre.
"It's great to have that same midwife at every appointment, someone who knows your story and is a familiar face," she said.
The birth centre has been designed for low-intervention births, allowing women to move around during labour, use natural pain relief and have a short stay in hospital. There are baths for water births and double beds and partners are encouraged to stay.
Midwife Cindy-Lou Aiken said she she'd "always loved the birth centre".
"I've had several mums having three babies with me and I've got my first mum coming back to have her fourth baby with me," she said.
"It's a lovely team of midwives, growing bigger. And I think it's a great joy for the midwives to see so many beautiful water births and natural births and women who believe in themselves and trust their bodies and be able to give birth in non-medicalised environment, still with back-up if it's needed."
North Canberra Hospital assistant director of midwifery Liz Bishop helped to plan and launch the birth centre at the then Calvary Public Hospital, working as much with architects as obstetricians to create the perfect space.
"Part of work was really around creating a space that was going to really enhance physiological birth - the women could feel comfortable in it with their children, colours that were calming, an environment that wasn't fear-producing," she said.
"So we did a lot of work around having emergency equipment, but it was all concealed. It would be in a space that was available but not the first thing you see when you come in, in labour."
Birth Centre manager Hana Sayers said when it opened, there were seven midwives and the plan was to have 16 midwives in the team by July.
"The model of care that we have here at the centre is called continuity of midwifery care and that is really gold-standard maternity care in our country and we know that when women have care through this model are more likely to have healthy term babies with less intervention in their pregnancy and their birth and they're really satisfied with their experience," she said.
The community get-together on May 5, from 11am to 1pm, will be a chance for families who have used the birth centre in the past to meet up and see the midwives who were there for their children's birth.
"It's hard to believe that we've been going for 10 years and there are 10-year-old children running around out there that we were actually involved in their birth," Ms Bishop said.
"We absolutely love seeing families."
Musicians Jacqueline Bradley and Matthew Nightingale are having their first baby at the birth centre, due on May 21.
They are also going to be performing at the centre's 10th birthday.
"Unless we have a baby first," Jaqueline said, with a laugh.
- Celebrate the North Canberra Hospital Birth Centre's 10th birthday on Sunday, May 5, from 11am to 1pm, at the John Knight Memorial Park in Belconnen. All welcome. In the event of wet weather, the party will be held in function rooms at the hospital.
