Best Hospital to Deliver a Baby in Seattle

The Puget Sound region is a special place; glorious vistas, sometime-growth forests, majestic mountains and sparkling lakes surround u.s.. Merely did you lot know this area also boasts some of the best childbirth options in the land?

"We moved to Washington when I was pregnant because I didn't like the options in Minnesota," says Ballard mom Jennifer Enich. What's so neat about Washington? The variety of birthing options information technology offers: infirmary births with highly skilled physicians and midwives, as well as births under the care of midwives at freestanding nativity centers or at habitation. Western Washington is itch with doulas and childbirth educators; in fact, experts say women in our area have more opportunity for vaginal births afterwards cesarean (VBAC) and water births than in about places in our country. With and then many options for childbirth, how do you lot choose?

First and foremost, consider your wellness and risk factors. Place them with the aid of your prenatal care provider, and then hash out the possibilities. Hither'due south a look at some of your options.

Hospital birth
Most Washington babies — about 98 percent — are born in hospitals, and while aesthetics may seem important during a hospital bout, about women don't observe the wallpaper while in labor. When choosing a hospital, try instead to focus on hospital policies, cesarean section rates and quality of nursing staff.

In a hospital, the nursing staff will be with you for most of your labor. A physician will make it to "grab" the baby, and perform surgery or provide emergency care, if needed. Your medico may check in to observe progress and give intendance instructions, but the person holding your hand and attending to your condolement is most likely going to be a nurse.

Yous may as well want to consider whether the hospital has adopted the Baby-Friendly Infirmary Initiative (BFHI), a global plan sponsored by the Globe Wellness Organization and UNICEF to encourage and recognize hospitals that offer an optimal level of breastfeeding support.

Hospital policies and programs vary. For instance, St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma has spa suites, and women can cull to have a water nativity (not available at all hospitals). When touring a infirmary, don't hesitate to quiz infirmary staff on policies. Remember about the birthing experience that yous desire — then observe out if that infirmary can make information technology possible.

While nearly assume that merely obstetricians attend hospital births, women tin also cull to piece of work with family physicians and midwives in hospital settings. Because different types of maternity care providers offer unlike styles of care, it's worth exploring all of the options available in a hospital setting before making your selection.

Midwives
Women in our country have a uniquely rich slate of options in midwifery care: certified nurse-midwives, licensed midwives, naturopathic physician licensed midwives and certified professional midwives are all bachelor here. Midwives nourish births in hospitals, in birth centers and at habitation, and provide complete maternity care for low-gamble women. While midwives come from a variety of educational backgrounds and will all take their own personalities, values systems and philosophies, they all are trained in the Midwives Model of Care, which is based on the concept that pregnancy and birth are normal life processes.

According to the Parent Trust for Washington Children, a statewide nonprofit, women who use a midwife experience far fewer interventions, such as augmentation of labor, hurting medication, surgical nascency, episiotomy and vacuum or forceps delivery. This may be in role because midwives by and large attend women for the entirety of active labor. "Midwifery exercise views mothers and babies equally an essential unit of measurement," says Seattle midwife Suzy Myers, C.P.Yard., and cofounder of the oldest directly-entry midwifery training program in the United States.

Normally, an expectant mother volition work with several midwives in a do, so that ane is always bachelor when she is ready to give birth.

"I loved appointments with my midwives," says Seattle mom Leah Eister-Hargrave, whose midwives offered 60 minutes-long appointments to discuss all of her concerns. "I always felt like my questions were answered and taken seriously. I felt like they actually cared virtually me and my family unit." Eister-Hargrave'due south midwives also visited her home 2 days afterward she gave birth, then again at one, three and half-dozen weeks postpartum. The standard for virtually care providers requires just one postpartum visit for mothers, at six weeks postpartum.

Choosing a midwife doesn't take to be an all-or-nothing decision; many midwives volition collaborate with obstetricians when a woman needs additional medical support, say, in the case of multiple births. Audrey Levine, Fifty.M., C.P.M., a midwife from Arcadia Abode Midwifery Care in Olympia, says she has cared for women pregnant with twins or with other complications that kept them from choosing an out-of-hospital birth by providing well-nigh of the prenatal intendance and attending the birth as a doula, with an obstetrician leading the nascency team.

Freestanding birth centers
While birth centers provide birth suites, tubs and supplies associated with birth, they don't really offer any technological differences from a home birth. Birth centers exercise not offer women access to epidurals or other pain medication during labor, and there is no physician on staff to provide emergency surgical intervention or special newborn care.

Birth centers do offer a safe, comfortable setting for depression-take chances women to labor under the care of a professional person midwife. The price of a birth center is thousands of dollars less than the cost of hospital admission for nascence services. In addition, almost birth centers are close to large hospitals to provide easy access should it become necessary to transfer care to a infirmary for pharmaceutical pain relief or other medical intervention.

Birth centers provide a great option for women who seek a home-like setting and tin't make information technology work in their own homes for some reason.

Carmel Drage chose a birth heart for her daughter's birth because she wanted a "natural childbirth" and liked the heart'southward flexible policies. After a long and arduous labor, her midwife suggested she clamber up and down the stairs in the anteroom of the nascence center. "I could hardly believe that she was suggesting this!" says Drage, but it worked. "My daughter finally emerged into my married man'southward eager arms. She was literally born on the stairs in the lobby in the middle of the night," says Drage.

Home nascence
While the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists strongly opposes out-of-hospital births, a 2005 written report published in the British Medical Journal found home nascence to be as safe as infirmary births in low-risk pregnancies. Three other studies published in 2009, ane Dutch and two Canadian, confirmed those results. These studies too found that habitation nascency involved far fewer interventions, such as medical augmentation of labor, episiotomy, or cesarean section, than did infirmary births for the same category of depression-risk women.

The start place your mind might get when yous think well-nigh home birth is to the messy parts — what will it do to the carpet? In reality, the mess is easy enough to comprise and clean. Of her home nascency, Enich recalls, "I was in bed with a beautiful infant, all messes gone before the midwives even left the firm."

One of the perks of a habitation birth is the fact that you don't have to go anywhere during what nearly consider an extremely private and uncomfortable time. "Staying in the comfort of my ain home, never having to get in a car while in labor, and cozying up in my very ain bed with my newborn was the way to go," says Eister-Hargrave of her home nascency.

While birthing out of a hospital means no access to pain medications, many women volition adjure to the fact that a labor tub provides significant hurting relief, and women who requite nascence at dwelling tin can rent that valuable tool. Labor Tubs Northwest will fifty-fifty come up to your house when your labor begins and ready a labor tub whatever time — 24-hour interval or night.

Doulas
Reaching dorsum to historic wisdom when a pregnant woman's friends and family members would nourish her labor and lend support, women can now hire a labor support doula, who provides continuous physical, emotional and advisory back up to the mother before, during and merely later on birth.

Even with a rock-solid partner or best friend at your side during labor, you can benefit from a doula's presence. Numerous clinical studies have shown that the presence of a doula tends to issue in shorter labors with fewer complications and reduces the need for medical interventions. A doula is essentially a birth double-decker; she is not licensed to deliver your baby, as a midwife may be.

Women who take the do good of doulas when giving birth written report more than positive feelings about their nascency experience. It's difficult to debate with such strong positive results!

A birth plan
Whichever nascence option you choose, you will want a birth plan — a written listing of your priorities and wishes for your birth feel. "Nigh of the time, a adult female'south birth plan is respected in the Puget Sound," says Penny Simkin, a local childbirth educator and doula. "This is not necessarily the case in other parts of the country. I have even had a nurse ask me for my client'southward birth plan was when she didn't have ane." Having a written birth plan makes information technology more probable that nurses will consider — and follow! — your wishes.

Phoebe Ho, M.D., a Tacoma OB/GYN, encourages her clients to brand birth plans as a reality check. "It's helpful for the patient to prepare, so they know what they want and what an platonic experience may be for them," she says. "When they have that, I can go over the programme and also tell them what I typically see and what my perspective is."

And having that birth plan tin help you stay in command of your birth experience — something that matters to many women. Simkin performed a long-term study on women's feelings about their nascence experiences. "I found that the woman's perception of the quality of care provided to her was very of import," she says. The women who reported the highest satisfaction with their nascency experience said they felt in control. The women who were dissatisfied reported feeling discounted and disrespected. This research suggests that choosing a wellness intendance provider is perhaps the most important selection yous will make about giving birth.

Didactics
Whatsoever your hopes or concerns are near childbirth, you can discover a childbirth education form to help prepare you for the inevitable. Getting this education, asking questions and interviewing health care providers will all assist you choose a path that all-time meets your priorities and matches your values. "Mind to your instincts about your care provider," encourages Enich. After all, you lot volition never forget your childbirth experience.

Tera Schreiber served the nascence community as executive director of Bang-up Starts Birth & Family unit Education, and is proud of the Puget Sound area's history of women taking charge of their birth experiences.

RESOURCES

Do your research: The Coalition for Improving Motherhood Services (CIMS) publishes a listing of 10 questions that women can ask when considering nativity services. Visit Mother Friendly; click on "free documents and downloads."

Pacific Association of Labor Support

Doula Match

Midwives Association of Washington State

Midwives of Washington

American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

Washington State Medical Clan

More about midwives here and also here.

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Source: https://www.parentmap.com/article/birthing-in-the-northwest

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