Enloe Medical Center

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Mother & Baby Care Center

The only Baby-Friendly designated hospital in Butte County

Enloe Medical Center offers the most comprehensive maternity program in the region. An experienced childbirth team you can trust delivers more than 1,600 babies each year. Our highly trained staff is committed to helping mothers achieve the birth experience they've dreamed of.

About Our Maternity Unit

• Birthing rooms
• Mother/Baby unit
• Baby Friendly
• Cesarean-section delivery and recovery room
• Special care nursery
• Visiting hours
• Location
  

Birthing rooms

A woman who has a vaginal birth will labor, birth, and recover in the same room. A whirlpool tub is available in the Maternity Unit to enhance comfort during labor. Additional pain-management options range from hypno-birthing techniques to epidural anesthesia. Additionally, doulas are available to provide non-medical and emotional support, including massage to our laboring patients. (Learn more about Enloe's Doula Program). After recovery, usually about one to two hours after giving birth, mothers and their newborns relocate to fresh surroundings on the Mother/Baby Unit.

Mother/Baby unit

On the Mother/Baby Unit, mothers are encouraged to room with their babies as much as possible, although a nursery is available to help with the care of newborns. When the mother is rooming alone, a support person is encouraged to stay overnight. We offer personal instruction with mother, baby and family to review care techniques before hospital discharge. As a Baby Friendly designated hospital, our education includes providing breastfeeding mothers with the information, confidence and skills needed to successfully initiate and continue breastfeeding their babies.

Baby Friendly

What does it mean to be a Baby Friendly Hospital?

As of Oct. 3, 2011, Enloe became the 119th Baby-Friendly hospital or birth center in the United States and the 42nd in California. This means Enloe is certified under criteria established by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to provide an optimal environment for the promotion, protection and support of breastfeeding. As a Baby-Friendly hospital, we provide families the information and guidance needed to initiate infant feeding and mother baby bonding. Benefits of breastfeeding: Breastfeeding exclusively for the first six months of an infant's life has many health benefits for babies and mothers, including a reduction in infectious diseases and mortality during infancy, improved bonding, and mothers’ post-partum weight loss. Breastfeeding also helps reduce the risks of common childhood infections, asthma, diabetes and other conditions. It saves time and money for families in baby formula and medical costs.

Cesarean-section delivery and recovery room

For convenient and expedient care, a fully equipped operating room and a post-anesthesia recovery room are located within the Maternity Unit.

Special care nursery

Sometimes babies have problems with feeding, breathing, or may have difficulty maintaining a normal blood sugar or body temperature. Some are premature or born too small. Nurses with advanced education and expertise in working with ill or unstable newborns are available to attend to high-risk deliveries and provide care in the Special Care Nursery.

Visiting hours and guidelines

Our visitor guideliness are intended to promote rest and snuggling, allow time for healing and learning, preserve privacy, enhance infant security and reduce exposure to infection. All visitors will sign in and out of the unit on each visit.

• Mother-Baby Unit: 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.
• Birthing Unit: Flexible, at discretion of the nurse caring for the patient
• NICU: Mothers and the designated support person encouraged to visit any time of the day.
• Note about children: Children are allowed to visit at the discretion of the patient. Children must be supervised by an adult other than the patient at all times. Children are to remain in the patient's room during their visit. Children younger than 14 years old who attend the birth must be accompanied by an adult whose sole responsibility is their supervision and support. In the waiting room, children under 12 must be supervised at all times.

Partnerships

The Mother & Baby Care Center is proud of its partnerships within the community and other non-profit organizations.

One of these partnerships is with the March of Dimes, which has recognized Enloe's dedication to giving every baby a healthy start. Enloe helped develop the California Perinatal Quality Care Collaborative's "Pre-term Labor Assessment Toolkit." The toolkit is used at Enloe and at hospitals throughout California to help improve the assessment of mothers in pre-term labor.

Enloe's Mother & Baby Care Center is also partnered with the Butte Literacy Council, which promotes literacy through several programs including Books for Babies, which encourages early reading to infants.

 

 

 

Contact Us

Mother & Baby Care Center
Enloe Medical Center
1531 Esplanade
Chico, CA 95926
530.332.3970