Making The Birth Less Of A Pain

Seattlepi.com:

Like a lot of expectant parents, Kristina Peterson and Ian McAllister left nothing to chance.

Their to-do list could have sent them scurrying all over town. Instead, they enjoyed one-stop shopping at Gracewinds Perinatal Services, whose personal, homey approach has earned a heap of awards for founder and CEO Christine Wallace.

“I was finding that pregnant women were having to go all over, looking for these services,” said Wallace, a certified medical assistant and mother of five. “I thought, ‘That’s silly. Why not have one place where women can find all these services?’ ”

Gracewinds started small in late 2002 — just six practitioners operating out of a renovated tavern in Ballard. But the business, which promises “a community of support under one roof,” soon needed a larger roof for its rapidly expanding community.

Gracewinds recently doubled in size, to 3,200 square feet, after moving into an adjacent space vacated by a violin maker. The sprawling warren now includes five treatment rooms, a library, yoga and photography studios, and a retail space called The Peapod Book and Birth Store, which opened a year ago.

Meanwhile, Wallace keeps dreaming up new ventures. The company’s non-profit arm, the Gracewinds Global Breast Milk Initiative, recently joined with a Kenyan group to work toward creating a mother-child clinic.