Making Room For More Babies | Video

Michelle San Miguel | 11/5/2012

If you`re seeing more babies around Bismarck, it`s because there are. A baby boom has hit the Capital City. Three hundred more babies are expected to be delivered in Bismarck this year compared to last year. And St. Alexius is making room for all the new faces.

Andrea Miller gave birth to a baby girl and was brought here to recover from her c-section. It`s one of six family rooms that opened at St. Alexius this week.

"It`s very timely that these are opening now when our volumes truly are increasing so much," said Women`s and Children`s Services Director Stephanie Goroski.

Before these rooms opened, most c-section patients were taken to a smaller room. Now the hospital`s making use of what was once empty hospital space.

"I feel at home and less claustrophobic for sure being in such a nice room and then you know there`s so many people that come visit at a time like this and you can fit them all in here," Miller said.

The hospital also moved the nurse`s station and connected it to the nursery. This is just one phase of renovations going on in The Birth Place, a project that`s been more than three years in the making.

"Lots of times patients will get kind of shuffled from room to room to room because one area will close or they can`t keep them up here and so they get stuck in another room so the continuity of care isn`t as good so hopefully that will alleviate some of that also," said nurse Jill Campbell.

Campbell starting working at St. Alexius in May. She`s one of several new nurses in The Birth Place.

"When the new grads were graduating in May we were able to snatch up quite a few of those but now the pool is a little bit limited locally so we`ve had to look out of state," Goroski said.

Like many organizations, they`re pulling in help from other states to deal with all the growth happening in North Dakota.

St. Alexius will be renovating 16 more rooms in The Birth Center over the next several years. The hospital expects the number of births to keep increasing for quite a while.

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