Few subjects are nearer and dearer to hearts than babies and children. On this edition of Out to Lunch Stephanie talks with guests who are Baton Rouge and nationwide experts on delivering them and educating them. Dr. Ryan Dickerson is the owner and medical director of The Birth Center of Baton Rouge, the only freestanding birth center in Louisiana. A freestanding birth center is a homelike facility not affiliated with a hospital. It provides family oriented care for healthy women before, during and after a normal pregnancy, labor and birth, and is run by certified midwives, doulas and nurses. Ryan, an OB GYN with Louisiana Women s Healthcare, spent two years developing the center and more than half a millon dollars to open it and in the three years since it is attracting a growing following. Sarah Broome is the founder of Thrive Charter School, a boarding school that caters to the underserved community in Baton Rouge. Sarah founded the school in 2011 when she was just 25. What makes Thrive so successful is its focus on educating the whole child and addressing all their needs not just educational, but physical, nutritional, emotional and spiritual. Thrive gives its students many of the things they can t get at home and it s making a tremendous difference in their lives. Sarah is an inspiration. The next time someone suggests Baton Rouge is not a cutting edge city with progressive thinkers and innovators, point them to this conversation with two of Baton Rouge s finest minds and people. Recorded live over lunch at Mansurs on the Boulevard.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.