Have you ever been up to Highlands hospital\u2019s 3rd floor? That\u2019s the Maternity Center and my next job-shadow is Jennifer Rice, the Maternity Center Director. As soon as you get off the elevator you notice you\u2019re in a special part of the hospital. The walls are a soft grey with beautiful photos of babies who have all been born there decorating them. It just feels different. But it didn\u2019t take long for me to figure it out. It\u2019s because 3rd is the NEW LIFE floor! Really neat. Anyway, Jennifer was there to meet me. We went to shake hands and I ended up hugging her instead. That\u2019s who she is, immediately.<\/p>\n
In her office, she told me she has been at Highlands for 23 years. After graduating from Northeast Alabama Community College, she started out on the night shift as a labor nurse and was a labor nurse for 18 years. Five years ago, she was promoted to Nurse Manager, but she gives all credit to her team. She said her coworkers operate like a well-oiled machine because they\u2019ve all been working together there for over 20 years. Many times, they don\u2019t even have to talk because they\u2019ve been together that long and know what each other are going to do. It must be a great place to work and a good job if there\u2019s this much longevity with all of them! Like a second family.<\/p>\n
Right away she tells me something important I\u2019m going to add to all my future articles – WHY Highlands is a better experience for the patient. YES, better than a large hospital! When it comes to a maternity floor, a big hospital has a labor nurse, a nursery nurse, and a postpartum nurse. The mother and baby are dealing with many different people. At Highlands, there is one-on-one nursing care. Each nurse is cross trained to handle labor, nursery, and postpartum giving the mother and baby individual attention the whole time. This sounds so encouraging for new mothers. Normally a natural birth mother stays 2 days, and a C-Section mother will stay 3 days. It\u2019s a scary and wonderful time. Having a familiar face to help is a definite plus.<\/p>\n
All women\u2019s care and surgeries are handled on this floor. Also, babies who are born 28 days early or more are on this floor and any babies who are re-admitted. They average around 30 babies a month and there were four when I was there! Jennifer said they would love and can handle many more. There are 10 postpartum rooms, 3 labor and delivery rooms (which look like your home only better than mine), 1 observation room, and one C-section room on the floor.<\/p>\n
My youngest boy was born in 1989 and a lot has happened since then! Back then your baby was whisked off and you barely saw them while you were in the hospital. Now Jennifer said there are several things different. Technology of course and what\u2019s called \u201crooming in\u201d where the baby stays mostly with the mother. How nice to have that extra time to learn what to do while there\u2019s help there. There\u2019s a \u201cskin to skin\u201d bonding which she said gives a number of benefits that were previously unknown. Also, we have 3 Lactation Counselors who help while you are a patient or even after you get home. They are there for counseling at no extra cost. The mothers can come in and use the lactation room even after they go home.<\/p>\n
We have three OB-GYNs. Dr. Pierce, Dr. Vargas, and Dr. Stroud who are wonderful and you can see them on the walls with their babies who were born there too.<\/p>\n
In every way, the hospital comes together to make the Maternity Care Center a BEST START for the new little family. One can\u2019t go far without seeing the difference the Volunteer Auxiliary makes with donations. If there are financial challenges for the family or mothers who didn\u2019t have a baby shower, there is the Newborns in Need program with the cutest little girl\u2019s closet and boy\u2019s closet filled with beautiful little outfits to go home in, blankets, diapers, and such. The Auxiliary also had big Dad rockers they\u2019d purchased and when I was there 16 new TVs for the rooms.<\/p>\n
You might think, not everyone has this wonderful new baby to bring home. I was really overcome with emotion to see the respect and care, not just for new life, but for the \u201cbabies born sleeping\u201d. They have a closet for them too. With beautiful little handmade blankets from a grandma who has lost her grandbaby, tiny gowns made from wedding dresses, and boxes of comforting items for the grieving mothers. These babies born sleeping are treated like treasures, just as God intended.<\/p>\n
All in all \u2013 it was an amazing experience. Thank you to all who contribute to making our babies and their new families have the best start possible.<\/p>\n
What a love story.<\/p>\n
by: Dawn Pettingill<\/em> Have you ever been up to Highlands hospital\u2019s 3rd floor? That\u2019s the Maternity Center and my next job-shadow is Jennifer Rice, the Maternity Center Director.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11863"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11864,"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11863\/revisions\/11864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.theclarion.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nHighlands Board Chairman<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"