Stoke Mandeville’s Women and Baby Centre is a £6m investment in dedicated facilities, which will be home to a number of en-suite delivery rooms, operating theatres with a recovery unit, and expanded neonatal intensive care.

The 16-bedded labour ward has all en-suite facilities with either a bath or shower and includes:

• a large birthing room with specifically dedicated facilities to deliver twins and multiple pregnancies

• a specially adapted room for patients in wheelchairs, which has close links with our spinal injuries centre

• the Aylesbury birth centre, our midwife-led section with four rooms, including a dedicated pool room, designed for mothers wishing to have a water-birth or more natural birthing experience

• facilities for postnatal mothers to be received back to the birth centre for one day after they have had their baby, to help with feeding problems.

55 beds are available on the existing ante/postnatal ward, Rothschild, offering inpatient services to women who need antenatal admission for clinical care and/or observation, or who need to remain postnatally as inpatients to receive care, eg following a caesarean section.

There are two designated obstetric operating theatres with an adjacent recovery unit consisting of two recovery beds. Four observation beds have been developed within the labour ward designed to ensure close monitoring of women whose condition require this either during labour or postnatally.  

A large family bereavement room, complete with en-suite facilities, is also available for those parents who sadly experience still-births, and is situated in a private area of the ward. Parents are welcome to spend time here with their baby if they so wish.

The neonatal unit has a total of 24 cots, three of which are dedicated for intensive care. There are also three ‘rooming-in’ rooms available for parents to use after the birth of their child, offering time and space to get to know their babies before discharge.