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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Valley Presbyterian Opens New Maternity Unit

With almost 400 births every month, it took, in the words of Luwanda Paggett, “crafty nursing practice” to make sure every baby was delivered safely at Valley Presbyterian Hospital —timing every delivery just right and moving the patient to the operating room just in time for a birth. That was before “Little Treasures,” the new state-of-the-art obstetrics addition that opened June 26, doubling to 14 the number of labor, delivery and recovery rooms at the Valley’s busiest hospital for births. The addition also combines labor, delivery and recovery in one room, bringing the Van Nuys Hospital up to current standards in what women want when they deliver. Until now, women went through their labor in one room, delivered in an operating room, were moved to a recovery unit and moved once again to the maternity ward after the birth. “This is less transition, less movement for the mom at a critical moment,” said Paggett, director of women’s services at Valley Presbyterian. Instead of us taking her to the equipment, we bring the equipment to her.” The $4.5 million addition was more than four years in planning and two years under construction. It adds seven new combined labor, delivery and recovery suites to the hospital’s current seven, doubling the unit’s capacity. Valley Presbyterian already has the Valley’s busiest obstetrics unit with 4,469 deliveries in 2010, according to statewide statistics. But that number is down 19 percent from 2008. Other area hospitals also have seen a decline in births, though some have seen an increase, including Kaiser Permanente’s Panorama City campus and Glendale Adventist Medical Center. The new investment should help lure back some patients who may have gone to more contemporary facilities in recent years, and hopefully attract new patients who have not considered the hospital, officials said. With its large, bright suites, big windows and sleeper sofas for dads and partners, the hospital hopes the new unit will make enough of a positive impression that young mothers will choose to give birth at Valley Presbyterian and bring their families back again and again. “Health care is increasingly a choice driven by patients” said Gayathri Jith, vice president operations at Valley Presbyterian. “We want to make sure the mom’s experience here is so positive she will speak positively about it to her friends and family.” Obstetrics also is a highly competitive field, and Valley Presbyterian is not the first to pump significant money into the labor and delivery suite in a bid to attract new patients. The one-year-old south wing at Providence Holy Cross Hospital and Medical Center has a new Women’s Pavilion that includes labor and delivery suites, new C-section operating rooms, and Level III neonatal intensive care units. It was an investment to bring in new patients and meet existing need in the northeast and Santa Clarita Valley, a Providence spokesman said. Providence St. Joseph Medical Center and Providence Tarzana Medical Center offer similar private rooms that allow moms to labor and deliver in one room and dads and partners to sleep over. These hospitals have taken the experience to new heights, with some offering new moms Jacuzzi tubs and celebratory lobster dinners. Kaiser’s Panorama City has seen deliveries rise to 1,950 in 2010 from 1,890 following the construction of the new hospital, where the maternal child health department takes up an entire floor. It, too, features large, single rooms, sleeper sofa beds and flat screen TVs. The new labor and delivery suites at Valley Presbyterian are larger than the current labor and delivery rooms and have ample space for doctors and nurses to move around during the delivery. They feature state-of-the-art equipment such as the new GE Giraffe Omnibeds and Panda Warmers to keep newborns warm and comfortable. In redesigning the obstetrics program, Valley Presbyterian also created a new position, the laborist — a hospital-employed physician who is available 24 hours a day to deliver babies, even if a new mom’s obstetrician is not able to make it to the hospital for the birth. “Babies here will always be delivered by a physician,” Jith said. “If the mom’s doctor is stuck in traffic, there is a house physician who is always here.” Little Treasures or “Pequeños Tesoros” in Spanish — a term of endearment used by Latina mothers for their babies — was funded with donations, including a $500,000 gift from Bank of America, and a loan. The first “pequeño tesoro” born on the new unit was Nevaeh Hazel Zamara, born June 26 at 7:40 a.m., weighing 7 lbs., 6 oz. Mom, Anita Rodriguez and dad, Pablo Zamara, were delighted by the whole experience, especially the gift of $1,000 toward Naveah’s college education — money collected by the hospital medical staff to welcome the baby. “It’s all unbelievable.” Rodriguez said.

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