The maternity ward is becoming passe, at least for those with money.

Birthplace Health, a Hyderabad-based start-up, has come up with a concept of birthing centres, as they are branded, exclusively meant for child birth.

Targeted at the premium segment, the company is looking to set up a network of such centres, which would provide ambience and several facilities for hassle-free deliveries, across the country.

The premium segment (delivery costing Rs50,000 and more) is about 30% of the Rs11,000 crore birthing market in India.

Birthplace is setting up a proof-of-concept facility in Hyderabad at an investment of about Rs20 crore, which will start in March.

"Delivering a child is an emotional moment of a woman. This is also an occasion for the entire family to celebrate unlike in any other medical need. So, a hospital, which has a variety of people including very sick people seeking treatment, is not the right place for delivering a child. Pregnancy is not a disease and is a moment of joy for the entire family. With this concept, we have been working on a business plan for the last one year," Tarun Siripurapu, managing director of Birthplace Healthcare, said.

The company plans to open over a dozen facilities in various locations like Vizag, Chennai and Coimbatore by 2017. Each centre is expected to cost between `10 crore and `15 crore depending on the location.

The company is funding the first centre through internal resources while it is keen on tapping banks, private equity and venture capital firms for expansion.

"Everything in the birthing centre would be exclusively designed for the would-be mother. The doctors, nurses would be of her choice. We would even provide music of her choice. There is also a library with a good collection of books. Moreover, we don't want to treat the visitors to the centres as typical attendants in a hospital. There are no visiting hours and when to allow people inside is left to the choice of the mother," he said.

The centre also offers facilities like yoga and Lamaze classes, apart from mother and baby exercises, diet and nutrition advice. It also offers training to the fathers on simple issues like changing the baby diapers.

But, all that has a cost to it. Typically, a normal delivery at the centre would cost `80,000 and Caesarian Section would cost less. "Our attempt would be to encourage normal delivery and we would like to charge less for a C Section," he said pointing to the popular perception that the hospitals and nursing homes perform more C Sections to charge more.

According to Siripurapu, a former McKinsey executive in New York, the first centre is expected to take a year to break even and translate into about 1,000 deliveries. "During the first year, we are expecting about 80% of deliveries to happen through referral mode from other gynaecologists in the city," he said. The company is targeting to capture about 8-10% of the premium segment once its network is in place.