Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health: Providing Quality Labor and Delivery Care for Women

Published: March 27, 2023

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With the start of the new year comes an opportunity to prioritize your health and ensure you are receiving the best care for yourself and your family. The Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health Women’s Health Department provides women with high quality care at all stages of their life, including the labor and delivery phase.
 
Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health’s Women & Babies Hospital guides patients through every stage of their journey including pregnancy, delivery and postpartum care. The hospital has received a variety of awards and recently earned the "high performing" rating in U.S. News & World Report’s Best Hospitals for Maternity Care for 2022-23 listing. It was the only hospital in Lancaster County to be recognized.
 
The hospital provides a variety of services including-
 
·        Comprehensive maternity services and support from the prenatal through postpartum journey
·        A Labor and Delivery unit dedicated to personalized birth plans
·        A Couplet Care unit where mothers and babies are cared for together in one private room
·        Newborn care from rounding pediatric and family medicine practices
·        Screenings for hearing and genetic disorders
·        Breastfeeding support and classes
·        Women's surgical care
·        Specialty services
·        A wide variety of educational programs
 
Women & Babies Hospital is home to Lancaster County’s only and most advanced Level IIIB Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). If your baby requires NICU care, minutes matter. The NICU team of providers is trained to respond quickly when providing the critical care your infant needs. The unit is staffed 24/7 by a team of providers from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). The NICU admits approximately 340 infants per year and provides care for premature infants born as early as 23 weeks gestation. The team also attends all high-risk deliveries to provide immediate assistance if needed.
 
In addition to providing critical and timely care for infants, the NICU also works to provide new services to families in the Lancaster area. The unit now offers therapeutic hypothermia (body cooling) as a service. Prior to the program’s implementation, infants were transferred to CHOP for this procedure and the family was separated during the process. Lancaster families benefit from this local offering because they can stay together and bond with their new infant during this procedure.
 
The next initiative planned for the NICU is scheduled to begin this month. The unit will be welcoming a CHOP eye surgeon to perform weekly eye exams and eye surgery for infants that need this care. This is beneficial for families because the infant will not need to be transferred to CHOP for this treatment.
 
The NICU team is dedicated to working together and continuing to improve the quality of care patients receive. Their goal is for patients to feel supported during this challenging time. The team has received extraordinary feedback from families including one prior NICU mother that said, “The NICU will become your home, the staff will become your family and you will likely make lifelong friendships. But most importantly, your child will teach you that anything is possible.”
 
In addition to the labor and delivery services featured above, women can also receive care through all stages of life at the Women’s Specialty Center.
 
To learn more about the NICU, Women & Babies Hospital and Women’s Specialty Center, please visit the links below.
 
Neonatal Intensive Care
 
Women & Babies Hospital
 
Women’s Specialty Center
 
Eliance Health Solutions is committed to providing our members with the highest quality of care. We are pleased to include the facilities listed above in our Tier 1 Network. The inclusion of these facilities is another way our members have access to top-tier providers dedicated to helping them achieve better health.