This expansion will allow more expectant mothers to access Single Room Maternity Care (SRMC), a birthing model of care available for women with low-risk pregnancies, allowing them to remain in one home-like room for their entire hospital stay. This also allows for continuity of care by a collaborative nursing team during labour, birth, and postpartum. Keeping mothers and babies together contributes to supportive breastfeeding, increased opportunities for skin to skin bonding, and shorter hospital stays.
The expansion brings the total of single room birthing suites at BC Women’s to 27.
“We look forward to the expansion because we’ll have the ability to offer more families the low-risk birthing experience,” says Kristen Ruddick, Director of the Maternal Newborn Program at BC Women’s. “We have heard from many families that this is an experience they are looking for during their birth, we listened, and we’re thrilled that more women with low-risk pregnancies will soon be able to access this model of care.”
The additional birthing rooms will also ensure that high-risk labour and delivery rooms in the Teck Acute Care Centre at BC Women’s are available to those women who need them.
All SRMC suites – both existing and new – have beds for partners to sleep on. All suites have private bathrooms and the additional new suites will have larger showers and tubs. The rooms have a modern, comfortable, and “home-like” feel, which creates a more relaxing, calming environment with the peace of mind that medical care is nearby, minimizing interventions during the birthing process.
These new rooms are part of an expansion of BC Women’s Cedar Birthing Suites, which also includes a new family lounge where family members and visitors can relax and wait, and where siblings can play. This new space is in line with our BC Women’s family-centred approach to care, which recognizes the emotional, social, and developmental support families offer to patients.
The Cedar Birthing Suites expansion is part of the BC Children's and BC Women's Redevelopment Project, a three-phase initiative to enhance patient care facilities at the two hospitals. Phase 3 of the project also includes the relocation of the BC Women's Hospital
Families in Recovery (FIR) Square Combined Care Unit, Canada’s first inpatient facility to care for women who use substances and their newborns exposed to those substances. FIR Square moved in July 2019 into a redesigned space catering to the needs of this unique patient population.
The Redevelopment Project is a joint initiative of the Province of British Columbia and the Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA). Project partners and funders include the BC Women’s Health Foundation, which provided $1.6 million for the expansion of the delivery suites and the relocation of FIR Square.
Clinical experts, patients, families, staff, and the public have been consulted throughout the redevelopment process, providing input on the project to ensure we create clinically best practice, patient-centered spaces.
If you have questions, concerns or inquiries about the Redevelopment Project, contact 1-855-857-3897 or cwredevelopment@cw.bc.ca.
