When UAB's new Women and Infants Center opens in spring 2010, families from the Birmingham-area, all of Alabama and the larger region will have access to world-class women and infants health care in a state-of-the-art, patient- and family-focused facility.
Located on 6th Avenue, between 18th and 17th Streets South, the new Women and Infants Center combines a welcoming, comfortable, family friendly environment with access to advanced medical care that ranks among the best in the nation. The 400,000 square foot Women and Infants Center will be located on the second through seventh floors of a 600,000 square foot new facility that also includes physician and medical faculty offices and the new Hazelrig Salter Radiation Oncology Center. Get a sneak peek of the building's progress here.
The Women and Infants Center will house services for healthy and high-risk pregnant women, healthy and high-risk newborns, and women being treated for a variety of gynecological problems, including gynecological cancers.
Patient and Family Focused
The new UAB Women and Infants Center is designed to anticipate and meet the needs of patients and their families. Family-focused features of the new Center include:
- All private adult labor, delivery and recovery rooms (LDRs), private ante-partum, post-partum and gynecology patient rooms. All of these rooms have private bathrooms with showers and include flat screen TVs.
- A pull-out bed is included in each LDR, ante-partum, post-partum and gynecology patient rooms for a spouse, partner or other support person.
- Private regional neonatal intensive care unit (RNICU) rooms with a sleeper couch or sleeper chair for a family member.
- Special RNICU and continuing care nursery (CCN) rooms for families with twins or triplets.
- Private continuing care nursery (CCN) with sleeping space and a bathroom with shower for family members.
- Continuous visitation in RNICU and CCN Rooms.
- Space, staff and equipment to care for healthy newborns in post-anesthesia recovery rooms, so that babies born by C-sections can stay with mom in the immediate post-surgery recovery period.
- Rooming-in with mom for healthy newborns (with the option to use nearby newborn nursery care in order to catch up on sleep after delivery.)
- Family lounges and playrooms for children/siblings on each patient care floor
- A Family Hospitality Center on the second floor with three family overnight rooms, showers for family members, a laundry, a snack kitchen and other family support services.
- A chapel, quiet/consultation rooms and bereavement rooms and services.
- A lactation services suite
- Patient and community education spaces and programs.
Follow this link to learn more about the new Women and Infants Center Labor and Delivery Service.
State-of-the-Art Care
In Alabama, only UAB provides access to the most highly-trained professional, the most advanced services and sophisticated state-of-the art medical technology 24 hours a day/7 days a week. UAB offers:
- Continuous onsite access to Maternal Fetal Medicine (MFM) subspecialists who are trained to deal with high-risk pregnancies and unanticipated pregnancy complications, 24-hours a day, every day of the year.
- Alabama's only comprehensive Regional Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (RNICU) that in cooperation with Children's Hospital of Alabama, offers Alabama's only pediatric heart surgery and invasive cardiology services.
- Neonatology physicians, onsite and available to care for sick newborns 24-hours/day, 365 days of the year.
The new UAB Women and Infants Center will also offer:
- The most advanced, wireless fetal monitoring and patient telemetry monitoring equipment. (This allows continuous monitoring even as patients are being moved between patient care areas within the Center.)
- Hands-free wireless communication with and between caregivers.
- State-of-the-art medical equipment throughout the building, including LDR C-section rooms and post-partum, ante-partum and gynecology patient rooms.
- Sky bridge access to additional acute adult and pediatric care services at UAB's University Hospital North Pavilion and Children's Hospital of Alabama.
Convenience
The new Women and Infants Center is designed for access and convenience. The Center will:
- Be easy to reach from all major Birmingham area expressways
- Feature onsite valet parking as well as secure, indoor self-parking with sky bridge connections directly to the Center
- Will be accessible to the new Children's Hospital and the services of UAB's University Hospital North Pavilion by sky bridges
- Provide easy access to the new 41-room Ronald McDonald House located one block away.
- Offer a host of dining and other services nearby
Learn More about the New UAB Women and Infants Center
If you want more information about UAB's new Women and Infants Center, or are interested in how you can participate as a donor, please contact Roberta Shapiro at rshapiro@uabmc.edu or 205-934-3389.
Make an Appointment
If you would like to make an appointment with one of UAB's Obstetric and Gynecology physicians, please call UAB HealthFinder at (205) 934-9999 or toll-free 1-800-UAB-8816.