The History of Centering

The developer of the Centering model, Sharon Schindler Rising, CNM, MSN, piloted the CenteringPregnancy model in 1993-94 when she was a nurse-midwife providing care in a private obstetric office, a hospital clinic, and a community health center in a city in Connecticut. She graduated from the Yale School of Nursing in the late 1960’s, taught on the faculty there and then started the graduate program in nurse-midwifery at the University of Minnesota. While there she developed the Childbearing Childrearing Center for comprehensive prenatal, well-child, and well-woman care to women and families seeking care at the University. Nurse-midwives and pediatric nurse practitioners provided the care and encouraged couples to join with others of similar gestation in a group that met for 6 months during late pregnancy and early postpartum. That experience provided some of the groundwork for her further development of the model to include the care assessment, education, and community building all within the group space.

The first pilot was conducted in the hospital clinic and included 13 prenatal groups, 3 of them teen groups. The results of this pilot are published in Rising’s 1998 article and helped to support the professional training workshops that began in 1998.

As the interest in the model grew it was clear that an organization was needed to support that growth so in 2001 the Centering Pregnancy and Parenting Association was formed as a 501c3 non-profit. In 2006 the name was changed to the Centering Healthcare Institute, Inc. to more accurately reflect the direction of the organization. Sharon continues to provide leadership as the Executive Director and is active during workshops, making presentations, consulting on research grants, and developing new Centering models. She has been supported in these efforts by a growing staff, faculty, and Board and by her husband, Ron who continues to provide graphics and web assistance, and her children Josh and his wife, Isabelle, and Kristin, all of whom are physicians.