Newsmakers: Behind the Scenes at Maple Grove Hospital Birth Center
The Maple Grove Hospital has been the largest birth center in the state for the last two years. The hospital says they average around 5,000 baby deliveries per year, which accounts for seven percent of all babies born annually in Minnesota.
Faith Zwirchitz, the director of women and children’s services, says that means there’s a lot of planning behind the scenes to keep everything operating smoothly despite COVID challenges.
“We try to make sure that we have an environment that is calm, comforting and quiet and that’s one thing we hear from families which is a moment of pride for us, said Zwirchitz. “Because we know that behind the scenes, it’s not necessarily quiet but the planning ahead of time to think through how to have spaces that are calm and quiet for the healing experience and bonding experience.”
The pandemic brought a variety of challenges to the birthing center. The hospital adjusted visitation guidelines. They worked on staffing, to make sure they had healthy team members at work and then plans for when those team members needed to stay home. Then, having a plan for when some of the mothers had COVID.
“We’ve had a number of those, so it’s making sure that baby stays as healthy as possible in light of the unique bonding time of being a newborn,” said Zwirchitz.
Maple Grove Hospital recently celebrated the 50,000th baby being born.
“We love to celebrate, be it this 50,000th baby being born to the knitting grandmothers who knit hats to celebrate,” said Zwirchitz. “We average about 14 babies a day in birth, but we did have a time not that long ago where in 48 hours we had 48 births. That’s a time where the team bonds in unique ways and really is able to enjoy thinking about the impacts that we have in connecting with the community.”
