Premier Birth Center Chantilly

There probably aren’t enough words to express my gratitude and love for Premier. As a first time mom, having my care here from start to finish at premier absolutely exceeding my expectations. I truly had the best prenatal care and birth experience- better than I could have imagined. I’ll first start off by saying how amazing every single person was at Premier. From the front desk staff to all of the midwives and even the student midwives, our care was so exceptional. And I say “our” because they involved and included my husband just as much as they did me and our growing baby, and always made him feel just as loved, heard, and cared for. From day 1 when I walked into the center at 12 weeks I felt so cared for. Every single appointment was so intentional, never rushed, and just felt so nice being able to just talk and get to know each midwife at every appointment. Their care model as far as having the most natural pregnancy and delivery aligned with all of my values and each and every prenatal visit was thorough, loving, and just felt so natural. It never felt like a doctors office. We had a concern that my baby may have been growing small but all of the midwives reassured me, took the proper precautions and did all the right things to ensure me and my baby were safe and healthy and they all did it with so much care. I never felt pressured to do anything I didn’t want to and they always kept me informed and educated. Now, the rest of this review is for a specific midwife. Nancy McMillen-Torres. I will first say that I could have had any of the midwives at my birth and would’ve been happy because every single one of them are amazing, but I was so excited when I called the on-call midwife when I was in labor and heard Nancy’s voice. Nancy was the first midwife I met at my first appointment with Premier and we just instantly clicked and felt such a warmth from Nancy. Again, every appointment with Nancy was filled with so much love and care and when it came to labor and birth it was no different. With the help and love from her, my doula, my husband, MIL, and the amazing student midwife/RN Corrine, they helped me so much throughout labor to stay calm, get in different positions, and ultimately have the most beautiful natural, safe, birth as a first time mom. We have so much love and respect for Nancy. We can tell how much she loves what she does and she is just amazing! I can honestly go on and on about the care here but from the bottom of my heart I am so thankful for Premier and because of them I can’t wait to see them again for baby #2 when that time comes!!! Thank you SO much to everyone at Premier! You won’t regret choosing Premier Birth Center!!

This birth center was incredibly disappointing. I feel like I was promised so much and prepared for very little. I know in my heart that my delivery would have gone very differently had I been in the hands of Mayanne or Sharon, but unfortunately Nancy McMillen Torres was on call during my birth. I have never been so poorly heard and listened to. It still hurts me and my husband to think about our experience with Nancy during the birth and even at our postpartum appointment during which she would cut us off just to tell her experience of my birth. From the beginning of labor, I didn’t feel in professional hands. Nancy had a disagreement in front of us with a new nurse, which led her to cry in front of us while I was in labor as a first time mom. It felt so unprofessional and made us feel very uncomfortable because instead of feeling supported, we felt we had to support her. Throughout labor, Nancy questioned the heartbeat, and kept asking us if we wanted to transfer to the hospital. We felt we were in incompetent hands. After many hours of being at 8cm and not feeling like Nancy was up to the task of delivering our baby, we decided to drive to fair oaks hospital. The moment we got in, the midwife there took initiative, had a plan, and provided us with so much care and support to continue with our birth plan. We couldn’t believe the professionalism and dedication of the staff at Fair Oaks. Our baby’s heartbeat was totally fine and I didn’t need to be hooked up consistently to a monitor. The delivery at Fair Oaks couldn’t have gone better, and now I will for sure be delivering our next child with them. The other huge issue with Premier Birth is their billing. They charge you a deposit and send you bills, without first going through your insurance (even if in network). I should have been reimbursed hundreds (maybe more than a thousand dollars) and I have never heard back from Premier with any updates other than they are “waiting to hear back from my insurance”… it’s been over a year. My biggest recommendation to new mothers looking for a positive birth experience is to transfer your care to Centreville OBGYN and deliver with them at Fair Oaks. So far all of my appointments have been with midwives (one with an OB who was so patient with my questions and didn’t make me feel rushed), all appointments have been organized and have made me feel loved and supported. It’s a birthing center experience, but in a hospital setting under competent hands. Best of luck. Xo

I had my baby in December and I’m finally getting around to sharing my wonderful experience with Premier. I transferred here around 16 weeks after not loving my OB experience. From the very first appointment all the way to our last day when my baby was 6 weeks old was incredible. Mayanne was my midwife and Lynette was my nurse — the two of them together were a power duo. I feel so incredibly grateful for them and their belief in me through an intense delivery. They both radiate kindness and brought so much comfort to me. My birth went according to plan (aside from having an almost 9lb baby which wasn’t fun ). Lynette was so caring and took care of me through my contractions, I couldn’t have done it without her. Our prenatal appointments were all great and I enjoyed getting to know all of the midwives. I never felt rushed or pressured into anything. The office staff is so friendly and I always felt right at home there. My postpartum experience with Mayanne was above and beyond. She called and texted often to check on me and the baby. She came to my home multiple times to do weight checks and brought donated breast milk after my baby lost too much weight. Then she connected me with a breastmilk donor. I truly don’t know a better human. Unfortunately I moved out of the state of Virginia and won’t be able to go here with my future baby and the thought of that makes me incredibly sad because of how smooth my experience was and growing to love the staff. I could go on and on. THANK YOU!

I really wanted to love this place, especially since there are not that many birth centers to choose from, but looking back I realize I have to try really hard to overlook a lot of things. There were things I definitely did not like about the hospital - well, ok, one thing, the doctor - but taking everything into account I have to echo what other people are saying and say just go to Inova Fair Oaks - all the nurses there were so wonderful and the facility was great and I just had so much of a better experience there. Prenatal: the midwives are all very kind and take a lot of time to talk with you, which is awesome. But they're all a little disorganized and ran around looking for equipment almost every appointment, which seems odd and doesn't engender a whole lot of trust. The midwife that apparently was assigned to be my primary midwife was convinced my baby was big based on my measurements and was super worried about it (ultrasound estimated he was about 65th percentile, so on the larger side but not huge!), kept talking to me about my diet and shoulder dystocia at every appointment. Other midwives didn't say anything about it. Well, I didn't have gestational diabetes, and he was born almost two weeks past due at just shy of 8 pounds, which isn't abnormally large. But then at my postnatal she still talked about him being SO big! Birth: I would go swimming while pregnant which was amazing so maybe my expectations were too high, but be forewarned if you're looking for a water birth, it's not like in pictures, they won't fill the tub enough for you to actually get relief during labor - think like sitting in a foot and a half of water. Also I prepared all this food and drinks with electrolytes for labor, but then when contractions got regular I couldn't keep anything down, not even water, so when I got to the birth center I was already dehydrated. It took a while for them to get a nurse to give me an IV, and the IV kept popping out of my hand and didn't seem to give me much, so I exhausted quickly and ended up having to do a hospital transfer which I had been determined not to do. (They gave me two bags of IV fluid at the hospital which helped a ton, and the epidural I had wanted to avoid ended up being great because it allowed me to sleep and regain some strength.) Billing / insurance: They use a third party for billing and insurance, which seems to mean there's all sorts of confusion on their end if your insurance changes. I think I've had to provide my new insurance at almost every appointment / etc. as well as have a whole email conversation with the billing company. And even after that, my old insurance was billed for the birth, and it's starting to sound like they didn't bill insurance at all for anything after that because my old insurance was inactive. It takes a very long time to resolve anything, it's been three months and many online messages and a few phone calls and I still don't know what is going on with what has been billed or charged and I haven't seen any of my deposit back (things should have been much cheaper under the new insurance). Edit: It's been seven months now and I keep checking in asking about the finances or for some itemization of services but have received nothing.

I'm so grateful for this Birth Center! All of the midwives are amazing. Nancy was our midwife for delivery and postpartum care and was incredible. Highly recommend!