Green Mountain Birth Center, Inc. will be a nonprofit healthcare facility in Waterbury, Vermont. As a freestanding, non-hospital birth center licensed by the Vermont Department of Public Health, we will provide families with a safe, accessible, and community-based option for maternity care. We plan to accept most private insurances as well as Green Mountain Care (Vermont Medicaid).
Currently, Vermonters must choose between hospital birth or home birth. Many even leave the state to access freestanding birth centers in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Green Mountain Birth Center will fill this gap by offering a vital third choice: high-quality, out-of-hospital birth close to home.
Collectively, this passionate founding team brings over 75 years of combined experience in midwifery-led care, community health, and maternal health advocacy.
Our Founding Members
Alison Fischman, CPM, LM – Founder, Secretary
Alison is a Licensed Midwife and Certified Professional Midwife with a strong background in out-of-hospital birth, community health, and perinatal education. She has supported hundreds of families in safe, personalized birthing experiences and brings deep knowledge of birth center operations. Her educational and professional path has centered on social justice and hands-on work. Before starting her own home birth midwifery practice in rural Vermont in 2019, Alison apprenticed at a birth center in New Hampshire. During her work as a licensed midwife in Vermont, she has focused on professional collaboration with CNMs, OBGYNs, MFM at local community hospitals as well as tertiary care centers.
She is a founding member of the Vermont Birth Center Coalition and has been advocating for freestanding birth centers in Vermont for many years. Alison also serves in professional leadership roles with the Vermont Midwives Association and as a member of the Midwife Advisory Committee for the Vermont Office of Professional Regulations.
Heidi Riendeau, CPM, LM – Founder, Board of Directors
Heidi is a Licensed Midwife and Certified Professional Midwife with years of experience providing prenatal, birth, and postpartum care in home and birth center settings. She is an advocate for family-centered maternity care and has been active in community outreach, birth advocacy, and rural health initiatives.
Through her studies of Early Childhood Development and Education, she has found that the strong connection that occurs during pregnancy and birth experiences creates attachment and confidence, which is imperative for the health of all new families and communities. Heidi has worked closely with the Amish communities in Vermont and is a strong advocate for collaborative care with local hospitals in order to best serve the most underserved populations in Vermont.
Lindsay Lachant, DNP, APRN/CNM, IBCLC, PMH-C – Founder, Vice President
Lindsay has over a decade of midwifery experience in diverse healthcare settings, including hospital-based labor and delivery, community birth at a freestanding birth center, lactation consulting, childbirth education, and mental health integration in perinatal care. Before becoming a midwife, Lindsay worked as a labor and delivery nurse for eight years in a small Vermont community hospital, where she was first introduced to midwifery-led care.
She has served in leadership roles in quality improvement initiatives, interdisciplinary care coordination, and professional task forces. Lindsay’s advocacy for midwifery-led care in Vermont includes co-founding the Vermont Birth Center Coalition, contributing to legislative efforts that support birth center licensure, and ensuring that evidence-based, community-driven care models are recognized and supported.
Her professional mission is to expand access to respectful, equitable, and holistic reproductive healthcare across the lifespan, particularly in rural and underserved communities.
Mary Lou Kopas, APRN/CNM – Founder, Treasurer
Mary Lou is a nationally recognized midwife with decades of clinical experience, primarily in hospital settings. She has served in leadership positions within the American College of Nurse-Midwives and has a longstanding commitment to advancing access to safe, respectful maternity care.
She grew up in central Massachusetts and spent years living on the West Coast. In 2023, she returned to New England to work at the Copley Hospital Birthing Center. She has been a leading voice in the efforts to save this needed maternity care service. Before moving to Vermont, she served as Chief of Midwifery at the University of Washington Medical Center, where she was also a member of the management committee of OB-COAP, a statewide obstetric quality improvement consortium. She has been involved in many quality improvement initiatives and has published a review on evidence-based practices for labor management.
Erinn Mandeville, APRN/CNM – Founder, President
Rinn has worked in various capacities within maternal health and midwifery over the past 20 years. Most recently, Rinn worked at the Copley Birthing Center. Before moving back home to Vermont, she worked at a high-volume Boston-area hospital. Before working in Boston, her career as a midwife included working in rural Alaska, a year in India helping to open a birth center in the city of Hyderabad, and practicing on the Texas/Mexico border.
She has extensive experience in rural and community-based maternity care and is skilled in evidence-based clinical practice, patient education, and collaborative care models. Her work focuses on equity and inclusion in maternal health, with particular dedication to serving underserved populations.
She is a founding member of the Vermont Birth Center Coalition and has spent many years advocating for birth center legislation in Vermont. She is also the Vice President of the Vermont affiliate of the American College of Nurse Midwives.