Gabrielle Glaze felt scolded and shamed when she delivered her first son in a Birmingham, Ala., hospital, forced to observe strict rules about lying stationary through her contractions and enduring countless cervical checks from “total strangers” who seemed disappointed by her body’s progress.

So when Glaze, 33, gave birth to a second son in a birthing center in April, surrounded by a team of midwives who said they would let her body lead the way, it seemed as if her previous labor experience had finally been redeemed.

Glaze found herself telling every woman she knew about Oasis Family Birthing Center in Birmingham, which was run by an obstetrician and midwives — many of them Black, like her — and encouraged patients through an unhurried, uninterrupted, natural labor process. She said it seemed like the answer to centuries of birthing trauma among Black women, providing medical expertise in a culturally familiar space, with the hope of improving both birthing experiences and health outcomes for women of color.

But Glaze was one of the last women to deliver at the facility. In June, the Alabama Department of Public Health shut it down, despite its record of smooth deliveries with no complications. State regulators are now weeks away from instituting new birth center licensing rules that would make it nearly impossible for similar facilities to open and operate.

“If these rules are not implemented, there will be fewer safeguards and standards for the operation of these facilities, exposing mothers and their newborns to increased risks to their health and safety,” a public draft of the new policy says.

Oasis and two other birth centers seeking to operate have sued the state with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, seeking to overturn the closure and create a path for others to open. A trial to determine their fate began Thursday. On Saturday, a judge issued a preliminary injunction that prohibits the state from refusing to license birth centers that meet national standards while the court case plays out.

In a state like Alabama, which has the third-highest maternal death rate and the sixth-highest infant death rate in the United States, some public health experts see birth centers as a potential solution to a gut-wrenching problem: Almost two-thirds of counties in Alabama have few to no local maternity care options. Next month, two labor and delivery units in the Birmingham area are set to close, including the last remaining unit in one of Alabama’s largest counties. Black mothers and infants make up a disproportionate share of bad health outcomes.

Research is limited, but free-standing birth centers, which take only low-risk patients, are associated with lower rates of preterm delivery, higher birth weights, lower rates of cesarean sections, increased breastfeeding rates and about $2,000 in Medicaid savings per patient, compared with traditional care, according to a multiyear study conducted by the federal government.

Across the United States, which has the highest maternal mortality rate in the industrialized world, receptivity toward birth centers varies. Some states, including Minnesota and Florida, have embraced the facilities so long as they meet national standards and the Commission for the Accreditation of Birth Centers recognizes them. Texas has at least 80 free-standing birth centers, run primarily by licensed midwives.

But in other states, including Mississippi and Kentucky, birthing centers face a battle similar to the one in Alabama. Officials in Georgia recently denied approval for a birth center in Augusta despite broad public support, because local hospitals refused to sign patient transfer agreements.

A spokesperson for the Alabama Department of Public Health declined to comment on either the shutdown of Oasis or the state’s new birthing center regulations, citing continuing litigation.

Dr. Heather Skanes, who ran Oasis, said the department notified her by phone that the facility needed a hospital license to operate, but provided no path for her to get one. The lawsuit against the department argues this is an unlawful “de facto ban,” she said.