The Birth Bungalow offers healthy, low-risk, mothers-to-be a new alternative in childbirth. A freestanding birth center in Stamford, CT, located just four minutes from the local hospital, the Birth Bungalow assures families the ultra-private comforts of home, the safety of certified midwives, and proximity to emergency care if needed. More like an upscale bed and breakfast than a high tech medical facility, the center has private birth suites with large beds and birth tubs which can help relax the mother, relieve pain and speed up labor. The Birth Bungalow also provides educational opportunities that are customized to each family’s needs. Childbirth classes, lactation classes and consultations, nutritional counseling, and pre-conception counseling are all offered on a private one-on-one basis and in small classroom settings. An array of supplements for the childbearing years, lactation support items, and baby care items are also available for sale. Birth and post-partum doula care are essential parts of what the Bungalow has to offer for those families needing individualized support whether birthing at the center, home or in the hospital. Nicole Peluso, the Bungalow’s Director, is a veteran lactation consultant and doula. Her background includes support for hundreds of natural, unmedicated births, hands-on operating room doula support for natural cesareans, perinatal counseling, childbirth education, and facilitating peer support groups. She has been a La Leche League Leader for nearly two decades and was a co-founder of a Waldorf inspired K-8 charter school. Nicole was introduced to the midwifery model of care in one of her college text books. For her first birth, she labored at home, meeting her nurse-midwife in the hospital for the final hour and a half of labor and, after dealing with some complicated cord problems, delivered a healthy baby girl. Her second child was born at home with a midwife in the middle of a big snow storm. The labor to birth her son was long and hard, but eventually all eleven pounds of him came out! For her third birth, thinking she’d try something different, she drove out of town to a birth center, where she had an amazing experience laboring in water and birthing with family surrounding her and the support of talented and attentive staff. The warm and professional care she received at this center prompted dreams of opening her own center one day and sprouted the seed that today is the Birth Bungalow.
