Shawnee Mission opens expansive new birthing center

Staff and community members celebrated the opening of the new birthing center Monday.

It may be cold and snowy outside, but if you picked this week to be born, Shawnee Mission Medical Center will welcome you into the world with a warm and inviting new birth center.

The $44 million Shawnee Mission Birth Center held its ribbon-cutting Monday morning and was open for business Tuesday, even in the storm. The birth center, located on the medical center campus, is three times larger than the unit it is replacing and will accommodate up to 5,000 births annually. Shawnee Mission delivers more babies annually than any other hospital in Kansas City, welcoming its 100,000th baby in November 2010.

The first floor includes a lobby, waiting area, refreshment area and the Mommy & Me Botique. The second floor has 26 new labor and delivery rooms and 15 mother and baby rooms in the existing unit. The third floor has 28 mother and baby rooms and the fourth floor includes a 24-bed Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) that features private, single-family rooms for mothers and their babies. Four rooms are designed to accommodate twins. The NICU is staffed by doctors from Children’s Mercy Hospital so premature and sick infants get care from leading neonatal specialists.

Each floor has its own patient and family lobby with a fireplace, television and refreshment area. The NICU lobby also has a shower and nourishment center. In May the birthing center will get an additional Cesarean-section suite (for a total of three) to provide immediate delivery for mothers and babies in crisis.

The ribbon-cutting and opening celebration Monday morning was to a full house and included remarks by Northeast Johnson County Chamber chair Bill Menge.

Bill Menge, left, was among the local business leaders to speak at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.