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Newborn Deaths At Birth Center Prompt Calls For Investigation, Oversight

North Carolina lawmakers are calling for a state investigation of a natural birthing center where three newborns died in the past three months. Officials would also like to see more oversight of the state's birth facilities.

Representative Nelson Dollar is asking the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services to investigate the Cary location of Baby+Company, which also operates birth centers in Winston-Salem and Charlotte.

The Cary site has reported four newborn deaths since opening in 2014.

Representative Dollar tells the News and Observer he wants Baby+Company to cooperate with DHHS, even though the agency has no legal authority to inspect or review birth centers.

The deaths in Cary have prompted some officials to reconsider regulations for natural birthing facilities in North Carolina. It's one of eight states that allow birth centers to deliver newborns without state licensing or oversight.

North Carolina does require that all nurse midwives be board-certified.

Baby+Company has halted deliveries at its Cary center while a review is taking place.

Neal Charnoff joined 88.5 WFDD as Morning Edition host in 2014. Raised in the Catskill region of upstate New York, he graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1983. Armed with a liberal arts degree, Neal was fully equipped to be a waiter. So he prolonged his arrested development bouncing around New York and L.A. until discovering that people enjoyed listening to his voice on the radio. After a few years doing overnight shifts at a local rock station, Neal spent most of his career at Vermont Public Radio. He began as host of a nightly jazz program, where he was proud to interview many of his idols, including Dave Brubeck and Sonny Rollins. Neal graduated to the news department, where he was the local host for NPR's All Things Considered for 14 years. In addition to news interviews and features, he originated and produced the Weekly Conversation On The Arts, as well as VPR Backstage, which profiled theater productions around the state. He contributed several stories to NPR, including coverage of a devastating ice storm. Neal now sees the value of that liberal arts degree, and approaches life with the knowledge that all subjects and all art forms are connected to each other. Neal and his wife Judy are enjoying exploring North Carolina and points south. They would both be happy to never experience a Vermont winter again.

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