When it comes to having your baby, you're faced with many options: Natural or medicated birth? Formula milk or breast milk? Compromises may occur, but one thing you don't want to compromise is the level of medical care you and your baby receive.

Ranked among the top 10 percent of maternity wards in the nation by HealthGrades 2006/2007, the Birthing Center of South Texas at McAllen Medical Center has become a medical leader not just in the Rio Grande Valley -- but across the country. The center also leads the nation in women's health, falling within the top 5 percent of hospitals nationwide.

So, why have your baby anywhere else?

Intensive neonatal care
"Informed parents should ask questions before deciding where their baby will be born," says Rebecca Ryder, Interim Chief Executive Offi cer for McAllen Medical Center and McAllen Heart Hospital.

The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at McAllen Medical Center is the only one in the area that offers Level III intensive care for babies and surgical intervention, if necessary. And it's literally just steps away from the labor and delivery suites.

"It's a frightening scenario for parents when they learn that their tiny, premature baby requires lifesaving surgery," Ryder adds. "To know that these services are available here in the Valley should be a comfort to any expectant parent."

Expertise with moms, babies
Parents who choose the Birthing Center of South Texas can take comfort in knowing that a high level of expertise and rigorous safety measures are the hallmarks of care.

"Upon delivery, each mom is assigned a labor and delivery nurse and, if necessary a ‘delivery team' that may consist of any of the following: a neonatologist, a NICU-trained nurse, a respiratory therapist and a labor and delivery nurse," says Laura Cortez, RN, Director of Antepartum, Labor and Delivery at McAllen Medical Center. "Every antepartum, labor, delivery and NICU nurse is certified in basic life support and neonatal resuscitation."

In addition to their specialties, nurses are also trained in:

• Advanced cardiac life support (ACLS)
• Basic, intermediate or advanced fetal monitoring (by the Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses)
• Triage, charge, surgery or recovery care
• Perinatal, lactation and postpartum education, as well as early baby care -- including sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), shaken baby syndrome and postpartum depression

Advanced fetal monitoring, family-centered maternity care model, infant surveillance
Prior to delivery, all expectant mothers and their unborn babies are monitored on advanced monitoring systems that allow physicians and nurses to share their medical data, says Cortez.

"The technology enables off-site physicians to monitor fetal heart rates and other crucial information during a mother's labor," Cortez says. Data is also shared throughout doctors' call rooms and workstations in Labor and Delivery, Antepartum and Postpartum to access fetal/maternal data at the click of a mouse.

After birth, well newborns may stay with their mothers in their private rooms or in the hospital nursery.

Private labor and delivery suite

The Birthing Center of South Texas at McAllen Medical Center is preparing to become the first hospital in the Upper Rio Grande Valley to encourage caring for babies at mothers' bedsides. The family-centered maternity care model, also known as Couplet Care, helps teach new moms parenting skills and promote bonding. Parents don't need to worry about being alone with their new baby -- a nurse cares for both the mother and her baby at bedside while educating the parents, which provides them with confidence about their role and makes discharge day easier.

Throughout a baby's stay, an infant security system, called Hugs® Infant Protection System, keeps track of him or her at all times.

Hugs^® alarm tags are fitted on babies' ankles at birth to help secure infants while in the Birthing Center of South Texas.

"We not only offer a high level of care, we offer a high level of security," says Kim Marwick, RNC, BSN, CCE, Director of Postpartum Services at McAllen Medical Center. "At the Birthing Center, new mothers can sleep more soundly knowing that their newborns are well cared for in a safe and secure setting."

To learn more about the Birthing Center of South Texas or to schedule a free tour, call 1-800-879-1033.

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