Expectant mothers and the Commonwealth may soon have another option when it comes to labor and delivery.

Freestanding birthing centers.

Northern Kentucky State Senator Shelley Funky Frohnmayer sponsors the bill, which passed the full Senate last week.

In tonight's legislative update, we hear from the senator about the bill she's been working to get passed since she came into office two years ago.

So this legislative session, I'm working on three pillars wellness, energy and economic development.

Freestanding birthing centers, you might recognize, falls soundly in that wellness priority.

We had an opportunity to bring some of our caucus, both the senators and House reps to Indiana and this Tree of Life birthing center is separate from the hospital, but it's a mile away.

And in that, which is similar to our bill in Kentucky, there is a physician led freestanding birthing center, and it runs on the midwifery model.

Part of what you'll find is minimal to no interventions.

That's the expectation.

So no epidural is offered.

No C-sections are planned.

No additional pain medicine, per se, per se would be offered.

It would be more holistic.

So you might almost think about a spa for giving birth.

So you may have a spa tub that as part of reducing the pain through water.

Sometimes it's referred to as an awkward curl as opposed to an epidural.

But finding more natural ways of managing through the holistically natural pain of childbirth, that freestanding birthing center.

It's maybe four, maybe five moms.

Most rarely do you hear that there are five moms in a birthing center at a time.

Tree of Life shared that they might have two or three on any given day in the state of Tennessee.

Vanderbilt University has an excellent model and they have a freestanding birthing center that is part of their Vanderbilt University.

I would like to see that model considered.

I have shared those thoughts with Saint Elizabeth and encourage them to seriously consider how you could achieve this.

But they don't have to be part of a hospital network.

But they could be relative to our rural areas may still be an hour from a hospital.

If we can establish a freestanding birthing center at that midpoint, then they're 30 minutes to a excellent health facility.

I also see that our home births have doubled, tripled in the last five years.

This is giving a another level with a heightened level of safety.

You've got many more resources available in a birthing center than you might in a home birth in order to have these centers in place.

This goes back to my three pillars of wellness, energy and economic development.

This is an economic development play as well.

There are people that have a real interest in opening these people that already have a birthing center in Tennessee.

By the time the statute takes effect.

They'll have the opportunity in July one to begin filing the appropriate paperwork with the calendar for Health and Family Services and begin sharing their business plan.

Some may already have property and ready to go, but people could begin as soon as July 1st.

Senator, Funky from Myers Bill passed the Senate floor on Friday by a vote of 34 to 0.

Here's what some other lawmakers had to say about the measure.

It is a patient's right to decide where and how they want to deliver their children.

So even though honestly, this is a decision I would never make for myself, but those people that are so desperately wanting an alternative, they deserve it.

The female body is amazing and we have the ability to bring life into the world.

But we all have different needs.

And some people prefer to be in a different environment.

And this gives us the freedom.

And the citizens of Kentucky to make that decision for themselves in what's the best environment for them to bring that life into the world.

The freestanding birthing center measure now heads to the house where last year a bill aimed at removing some of the barriers to opening birthing centers passed.

We'll keep following it.