Newswise — (CHICAGO) – Patient families, doctors, nurses and staff from the labor and delivery, neonatal intensive care (NICU) and mother baby units at Rush University Medical Center will gather together on Friday, February 7, at 10:30 a.m., to celebrate the opening of the new Rush Family Birth Center, a $31-million, state-of-the-art care facility for mothers and their newborns.

The Rush Family Birth Center will be the city’s newest, most advanced facility for women’s and children’s services and will offer every service related to delivery and caring for a baby on the same floor. “As part of the Rush Transformation plans that led to our new Tower building, the new Rush Family Birth Center was designed with the mindset of meeting families’ needs and providing patient safety,” said Dr. Larry J. Goodman, CEO at Rush. “We have always provided advanced, quality care that is evidence based. Now, we have a new facility that matches the type of care we provide mothers and their newborns.” The new Rush Family Birth Center is located on one floor at Rush and slated to open on March 9. The space was designed with four key care concepts, which were to provide adjacency, privacy, family space and mother baby bonding. The new center has large, individual rooms to keep moms, babies and families together throughout their journey.

No other hospital in Illinois has located its NICU immediately adjacent to labor and delivery to afford newborn infants in distress specialty care in the first minutes of life. Patient safety as well as convenience inspired the design.

“The first 10 minutes of life are critical to newborns who come into the world in distress,” said Dr. Robert Kimura, neonatologist at Rush. “Because of the way we designed these new facilities, those babies who are in medical distress can be put in the hands of neonatal medicine intensive care specialists within seconds after delivery.

“At Rush, the birthing suites and operating rooms are right next to the NICU resuscitation room, so that a team of specialists can immediately and optimally care for babies in crisis,” said Kimura.

The antepartum rooms also are near labor and delivery, so in urgent situations women and their babies can promptly get the care they need.

Keeping services close and right next door to each other limits how far and how often babies need to move, which helps limit their risk of infection and reduces exposure to light and sound to help with the baby’s development.

Labor and Delivery:• Five single obstetric triage rooms; ten, spacious, individual birthing suites with views of the Chicago skyline; private, walk-in showers; flat screen televisions; couches and chairs that transform into sleeping spaces.• Three operating rooms with all the latest equipment needed to care for mom and baby in the event of a C-section or any other necessary surgical procedures.• Five single recovery rooms.

Neonatal Intensive Care Unit:• Fifty-five, private NICU rooms are divided into three intimate, family-friendly pods.• Resuscitation rooms are located right next door to Labor and Delivery and share a common wall and door with the NICU.• On-site radiology services.• One procedure room.• Single rooms in the NICU provide privacy for families as well as individual control of lighting, sound and temperature. • Each room is equipped with the latest, technologically advanced monitoring devices and medical supplies.• Rooms are equipped with comfortable seating for family as well as breast pump and a refrigerator to store breast milk.

Mother Baby Unit:• Thirty-four single, mother baby suites for after delivery with plenty of space for family members.• All rooms have couches and chairs that convert into sleeping spaces.• Privacy curtain within the patient’s own room so that new mother can have privacy.• Babies stay with their mothers in the room for all care including initial baths as well as exams by pediatricians. This gives families the opportunity to ask questions, watch exams and learn about the care of their newborns so they truly feel prepared when they go home.• Lactation consultants are available in the unit to help new moms with any challenges of breastfeeding.• Five, single antepartum rooms for high-risk expectant mothers.• Five-bay area for outpatient antepartum testing.

Rush is one of ten perinatal centers designated by the state of Illinois and serves as the regional hub for a network of Chicago-area hospitals to provide quality care to high-risk mothers and babies. The Rush network involves 18 hospitals delivering more than 30,000 infants per year and is the largest in Illinois.

For more information about the new Rush Family Birth Center, visit the Rush Transformation site at: http://transforming.rush.edu/NewHospital/Pages/FamilyBirthCenter.aspx

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