Family Birthing Center at Meritus strives to ensure healthy baby, mom

The Family Birthing Center at Meritus Medical Center welcomed 1,997 babies in 2024.

That’s an almost 11 percent increase from the 1,801 babies birthed at the hospital in 2023.

And U.S. News & World Report recently named Meritus a High Performing hospital in Maternity Care (Uncomplicated Pregnancy) for 2024.

“I think our Labor, Delivery, Recovery and Postpartum unit is special,” said Ellen Curry, clinical manager of the Family Birthing Center. “Our staff is phenomenal. I think it’s about the environment, support and respect we give our moms.”

Proper support is important for moms and infants, especially in the child’s first few days of life. The World Health Organization notes that babies who are protected from injury and infection, are able to breathe normally, and are properly warm and fed are less likely to have other health issues during the first month of life.

The Family Birthing Center at Meritus has been designed to provide that good start.

For example, many other hospitals have two units — labor, delivery and recovery, and postpartum. At Meritus, the mother stays in one room the entire time. Her baby stays in the room with her after birth, and select family, like fathers, can stay as well.

The birthing center has 20 LDRP rooms, plus 12 other rooms that can be used for consultations or performing C-sections.

Additionally, Curry said 90 percent of vaginal deliveries at the hospital are attended by midwives.

“That’s unique,” she said. “A midwife’s training is, compared to physicians and surgeons, as birth experts.”

That’s not to say that physicians and surgeons aren’t experts in their field, she noted.

“Midwives have a different approach,” Curry said, adding that physicians are at the ready should the need arise for more help.

That has been especially important as more pregnant mothers coming to the hospital with certain acuities — for example, high blood pressure or diabetes.

The birthing center also has expert care at the ready should the newborn need it. The Special Care Nursery, a level two neonatal intensive care unit, or NICU, can treat many conditions seen in infants in their first days of life. This eliminates the need to travel outside the area, Curry said.

Caring for patients isn’t limited to inside the hospital. Because breastfeeding provides numerous benefits to both child and mother, the birthing center has lactation consultants available 24 hours a day, regardless of whether the patients are still in the hospital.

And before patients even come to the hospital, a staff nurse goes into the community through different organizations to build relationships, especially with those who are coming from a disadvantaged background.

“We try to meet people where they are,” Curry said. “We respect people, their cultures and backgrounds, who they are as people and what kind of care they need to make them healthy. Doing so improves the chances of having a healthy pregnancy, healthy delivery and healthy baby.”