The delivery rooms at
Women & Infants Hospital have been feeling a little cramped in recent years.
Expectant mothers ready to give birth often find themselves in rooms crowded with monitors and other equipment to track the vital signs of mother and baby as labor progresses. As the birth moves closer, the room gets busier with nurses, technicians and doctors flowing in and out. Fathers-to-be and other relatives also gather to welcome the new family member into the world.
Not exactly ideal in a 220-square-foot room.
That’s part of the reason why Women & Infants Hospital is embarking on building a new $28 million labor and delivery unit, the first major redesign in 36 years for the W&I ward.
Among the changes: each of the 20 delivery rooms will nearly double in size, and each will have a window and contain furniture to make the room feel homey and comfortable, while also allowing for other amenities to support more-modern approaches to giving birth.
“Our current space was built over 30 years ago,” said Dr. Methodius Tuuli, executive chief of obstetrics and gynecology for Women & Infants and chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at
Brown University’s Warren Alpert Medical School. “It was state-of- the-art at the time. But in 30 years, a lot has changed.”
Construction is expected to start later this year and will be completed in 18 months, the hospital says. But the existing delivery rooms will remain open while the work is underway.
Women & Infants, which is operated by nonprofit
Care New England Health System, has launched a fundraising campaign with a $33 million goal, $5 million of which would be set aside for the creation of a Women’s Health Research Institute that would provide seed money to early- and mid-career researchers.
So far, the initiative has raised more than $12 million.
Women & Infants administrators note that the reconstruction of the labor and delivery wing will have a wide-ranging impact on people in the region.
The hospital, the ninth-largest standalone obstetrical service in the country, records about 8,500 births a year, and most expectant mothers in Rhode Island give birth at Women & Infants.
“Almost every family has had their children here, their grandchildren here, or known someone who has,” said Shannon Sullivan, W&I president and chief operating officer. “There isn’t a project that touches as many lives as this one.”
Yet Care New England, the second-largest health system in Rhode Island, has struggled financially in recent years, most recently posting a $35 million loss in the first half of fiscal 2022.
After several failed attempts to merge with other institutions in recent years, including a merger attempt with the state’s largest hospital group, Lifespan Corp., the CNE board of directors voted on July 5 to remain independent.
That decision was made in part because of the financial help included in the state’s fiscal 2023 budget, which allocated $45 million in American Rescue Plan Act money to hospitals and increased Medicaid reimbursement rates for labor and delivery services by 20%.
Meanwhile, Women & Infants is pushing ahead with the labor and delivery unit project because the existing facility – constructed in 1986 – is showing its age.
Only three of the 20 delivery rooms have windows and most have shared bathrooms.
Aside from the expectant mother’s bed, there isn’t much room for comfort among family members or much space for modern birth approaches such as using an exercise ball to ease labor pains or receiving guidance from a doula.
The renovation will update equipment and enlarge the delivery rooms from 220 square feet to 400 square feet. It will also ensure that all delivery rooms have a private bathroom and a window to the outside.
“You want the rooms to be aesthetically pleasing so that it’s more homelike,” Tuuli said.
Rooms and hallways will be arranged to ensure “flow” for the dozens of health care workers who participate in deliveries.
One of the priorities, Tuuli and Sullivan say, is to ensure equity – all the rooms will look the same and have the same equipment and features after the renovation. This not only ensures equity but also means every room will have the space and equipment necessary to meet the needs of the patient, no matter the circumstances.
“We want to ensure that these rooms can keep up with patients from low risk to high risk,” Tuuli said. “You can’t tell who will have complications, so with these rooms, we can always deliver the best care.”
Because construction mostly will take place in an addition on what is now a parking lot, there will be nearly no disruption to the unit’s operations.
“The only time the current labor rooms will be impacted is when we come through the wall to attach the new unit to the building,” Sullivan said.
