St. Joseph’s Hospital-South’s maternity services has started 2022 with two big reasons to celebrate.
2021 ended with the hospital setting its record for most babies delivered in a year since it opened in Riverview in February 2015. The hospital delivered 1,740 babies in 2021, topping the previous record of 1,209 in 2020. 2021 was a 44 percent increase over 2020.
In addition, the five highest monthly total of babies delivered in the hospital’s history happened in 2021:
184 – November, 163 – July, 162 – June, 130 – May and 124 – March.
“We thank all the families who chose and trusted us as the hospital to deliver their children,” said Phil Minden, St. Joseph’s Hospital-South president. “The families are the ones who really made this happen. And, I congratulate and thank the doctors and our maternity teams who helped us achieve these milestones. I’m excited to see what 2022 brings. I’m looking forward to hearing the soft chimes ring again often in our hospital nearly 2,000 times in the new year.”
Minden was referring to the soft chimes that ring out throughout St. Joseph’s Hospital-South for all to hear each time a new baby is born.
The hospital is also celebrating in early 2022 the first anniversary of its 11-bed neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). The NICU, which opened February 22, 2021, is for babies born prematurely or with special health needs. The Level II NICU provides specialized around-the-clock care 24 hours a day, seven days a week for newborns and their mothers. The NICU is staffed by highly trained neonatologists, obstetric and pediatric hospitalists and board-certified maternal fetal medicine physicians and certified nurses. Mothers are able to stay in the baby’s room during their child’s NICU stay.
BayCare and St. Joseph’s Hospital-South administrators believe there may be a correlation between the record number of babies born at the hospital and the new NICU.
“During pregnancy, we know how important it is to have the available resources,” said Jenny Leistl, BayCare’s East Region director of patient services in obstetrics. “We want to make your birth experience special and support our patients from pregnancy to parenthood.” St. Joseph’s Hospital-South is part of BayCare’s East Region division.
St. Joseph’s Hospital-South can also transfer babies requiring higher levels of care to the Level IV NICU at St. Joseph’s Women’s Hospital in Tampa.
Visit stjosephssouthmaternity.org to learn more about St. Joseph’s Hospital-South’s maternity services. The page includes a video tour of the hospital’s labor and delivery rooms; the comfortable, homelike Mom and Baby rooms; the NICU; and other features.
