Cape Town - When you walk into Cape Town’s first luxury maternity hospital, you may be excused for thinking you are walking into a boutique hotel.
Having officially opened its doors on Friday, the Origin Family-Centred Hospital in Parow is no ordinary hospital, and brings new meaning to birthing mothers and their families.
The facility is run by midwives and boasts facilities that promote natural birth and relaxation such as birthing baths, birthing assistants or doulas, luxurious hotel-like rooms, and wireless cardiotocograph machines or electronic foetal monitors to encourage mothers to be to be mobile.
The 16-bed facility strives to mainly have vaginal births and less caesarean rates. Its antique French theme and openness to families, including children, provides comfort to moms-to-be.
Despite the growing popularity of C-sections in the country’s private sector, which currently stands between 75 and 85 percent, the new hospital says it plans to cap its C-section between 15-20 percent, in line with the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommendations and on a par with other First World countries such as the UK and Canada.
The hospital’s chief operating officer, Sydney Grove says unlike traditional hospitals where the “hospital environment is considered intimidating to many patients”, including birthing mothers, the setting of the new hospital and the use of midwives, who also consult with patients prior to birth, made birthing mothers and their families “feel at home”.
“Unlike in traditional maternity units where birthing mothers often meet midwives for the first time when they get admitted into hospital therefore bringing about anxiety on these mothers, we build the relationship during the antenatal period, so the clients get to know the midwives that will be part of their birth experience, and understand midwifery techniques of pain management.
“The hospital has antique French theme so that the environment doesn’t remind you of a hospital. The idea is to encourage the release of oxytocin (the natural birthing hormone) to help with active labour and not stop it through medical interventions,” he said.
While Grove acknowledged that C-section had its place in birthing and was a great intervention to save lives, the hospital wanted to build a reputation where it was known as a “natural birth centre and not a C-section palace”.
Gynaecologists only assisted births when there’s birth complications and during C-sections.
Boasting 10 labour rooms, which are also used as postnatal rooms where new mothers and their family members such as spouses or older children can sleep, the hospital also has six birthing baths to help relaxation and help facilitate birth.
Cape Argus