Maternity Center Has First Birth

Manami Kaneko did not know she was in labor when she arrived at her doctor’s office Monday for a final checkup. After all, her baby wasn’t due for three more weeks.

But no one told the baby, who decided Dec. 28 would make a fine birthday.

Mayuka Emily arrived at 1:55 p.m., the first baby to be born in the new Mother and Child Maternity Center and Clinic at Western Medical Center-Anaheim.

The center, which opened Monday, was built in part with money from Proposition 99 tobacco tax revenue.

The hospital was given $1.3 million to develop the birthing center in an effort to relieve a shortage in delivery beds for Medi-Cal patients.

In June, 1990, UCI Medical Center sent shock waves through Orange County when it placed security guards in its parking lot to tell low-income women in labor that it might be better for them to go elsewhere to have their babies because of the overcrowding.

The hospital was being swamped by expectant mothers who showed up at the emergency room. Equipped to handle 300 births a month, the center in Orange was delivering twice that many. The problem was countywide.

But since then, things have changed dramatically with the opening of the 14-bed birthing center at Western Medical and a similar facility that opened at UCI Medical Center less than a year ago.

“I think there is still a problem, but it’s been upgraded from a crisis,” said Tim Carda, chief executive officer of Western Medical Center.

“Everyone still has all they can handle, but things are definitely better. UCI doesn’t have guards in the parking lot anymore.”

Western Medical’s new $5-million, 16,000-square-foot facility has 14 birthing rooms, four of which are primarily for Medi-Cal patients.

The birthing rooms allow the mother to stay in one place through labor, delivery and recovery. She may also have family members attend the birth.

The outpatient companion clinic, located across the street, provides clinical and educational support services, including pregnancy and childbirth preparation, newborn care, breast-feeding information and nutrition and exercise consultation.

“Many of the women we see on Medi-Cal are in desperate need of education on prenatal care and infant care,” Carda said. “Some have only their mothers to turn to for education. With some of our Asian or Hispanic patients, maybe those women’s knowledge of birthing comes from the eldest woman in the village.”

Nurse midwives are used extensively in the birth center for low-risk pregnancies, cutting costs considerably, Carda said.

Birthing centers that employ specially trained nurse midwives and encourage natural childbirth for low-risk deliveries are the wave of the future, he said.

“Although things are better in the county now with regard to beds available for pregnant women on Medi-Cal, the problem now is getting them in for prenatal care,” Carda said.

“But things are improving, and it’s so nice to have babies being born here instead of just open-heart surgery.”