BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — Oishei Children's Hospital is expanding care options for moms in the Western New York community with high-risk pregnancies.
The hospital, which is in the Kaleida Health system, received the green light from the New York State Health Department, to add a high-risk maternity unit in the facility, Wednesday.
Roughly 8% of pregnancies in the United States are considered high-risk.
This means about 50,000 women experience pregnancy complications each year.
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Black women are three times more likely to die from these complications than white women, according to the Cleveland Clinic. To ensure the best possible outcome, these moms require special care.
OCH will now move forward with the construction of 12 private inpatient rooms, which will support the care for the hospital's high-risk maternity patients before giving birth.
The unit, which should open by the fall of 2023, will include additional space for families, a care team of highly trained OBGYN's with maternal-fetal medicine specialty, 24/7 emergency access to emergent deliveries and especially for women with high-risk clinical conditions and reducing the length of stay to ensure the mom and baby go home sooner.
"Many of these women are on bed rest and/or are being provided a higher level of care that they need to be admitted for, for a longer period of time and watched and maintained," Oishei Children's Hospital president, Allegra Jaros said. "We know our higher risk moms will do better. They'll be able to focus more on their stay and get more of their home with home health, if possible so they can be with their other children and their family while they're caring for their child prior to birth."
Oishei Children's Hospital's high-risk moms currently occupy beds throughout the hospital's "Labor & Delivery and Mother-baby" floors.
An estimated $6.6M project will be on the 7th floor of the hospital.
Since 2012, the number of deliveries has increased by 35%, according to OCH. There has also been a significant increase in high-risk deliveries at the hospital.
In 2021, total newborn deliveries was nearly 3,500, according to Oishei Children's Hospital.
The newly-constructed rooms will occupy about 11,000 sqft of space.
