Maternity Services

Choosing a hospital

If you are pregnant, or considering having a baby, you will have to make many decisions. One of the most important is where to have your baby. You should know not all hospitals are alike.

Experience
When you choose Yale-New Haven Hospital, you are also choosing doctors, nurse-midwives and nurses who have the experience and the training you want. More women choose to have their babies at Yale-New Haven than at any other hospital in Connecticut. Diagnostic tests such as fetal echocardiography were developed here, bringing dramatic changes to the field of maternal-fetal medicine.

Extra help if you need it
If you are like most women, your pregnancy will be very normal. You will go through your pregnancy without any major problems and have a normal birth. But a small number of women need extra help getting pregnant or may have complicated pregnancies, go into labor early or need some of the specialized services only Yale-New Haven Hospital offers.

Specialized Yale-New Haven staff can offer you help with:

• Infertility services
• High-risk pregnancies
• Genetic consultation
• Diagnostic imaging services
• Extensive prenatal testing
• Testing and fetal echocardiography

Discuss your need for specialized services with your health care provider. Your physician may also offer some of these services.

Our nurses are tops
Women who deliver at Yale-New Haven are cared for by experienced labor and birth nurses who support you through childbirth. After delivery, one nurse cares for both mom and baby, an arrangement new moms really like.

The best baby care
Most babies are born healthy and normal and go home with mom. But for premature or ill newborns, the advanced services of the Newborn Special Care Unit at Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital can be lifesaving. If your newborn baby needs extra care, Yale-New Haven offers the highest level of care available.

Your pregnancy, your way
Long gone are the days when women labored alone and dads paced in waiting rooms. At Yale-New Haven, we offer all of the sophisticated technology you expect. But we go the extra step to meet all of your needs, before, during and after the birth of your baby. Prenatal testing. Childbirth classes. Comfortable rooms with a view. Private rooms with mother-baby care. Breastfeeding support. And dads can even stay over, too.

Once a cesarean....
Not always a cesarean. Increasingly, women who have had Cesarean sections are delivering babies naturally in later pregnancies. Yale-New Haven staff is strongly committed to supporting women who choose a vaginal birth after a C-section (VBAC). In addition, physicians and nurses are working together to reduce the overall C-section rate. About 60 to 80 percent of women who attempt a VBAC are successful at Yale-New Haven Hospital.

Research for the next generation
The type of care available to pregnant women today was only a dream a generation ago. Yale-New Haven Hospital and Yale School of Medicine's commitment to research and program development has helped make many of these dreams possible.

Continue: Choosing an OB or midwife

Maternity Services home page

Last revised: July 19, 2005 (jj)

Home page URL: http://www.ynhh.org

All information is intended for your general knowledge and is not a substitute for medical advice or treatment for specific medical conditions. You should seek prompt medical care for any specific health issues and consult your physician before starting a new fitness regimen.