North Bristol NHS Trust has released the first artist impressions of the new Birth Centre at Cossham Hospital.
The midwife-led centre will be the first of its kind in the local area, providing low risk mums-to-be in Bristol and South Gloucestershire with a safe, homely alternative to giving birth in a traditional hospital maternity environment.
The centre will be based on the top floor of Cossham Hospital providing bright, light and airy surroundings.
There will be four birthing rooms available, all furnished in a welcoming, comfortable way. Each room will have a birthing pool, additional birthing aids to support the natural process of childbirth, double bed, sofas and en-suite facilities. Facilities will also be available to offer an alternative choice of venue for antenatal and postnatal care.
Rachel Fielding, NBT’s Deputy Director of Midwifery, said: “With the opening of the Cossham Birth Centre, NBT will be able to offer local women the additional choice of a free-standing Birth Centre for their place of birth, alongside the others options already available to them, which include home, a co-located Birth Suite and the Obstetric Unit.
“Cossham Birth Centre will be very different to our facilities currently on offer at Southmead Hospital and will provide a real home-from-home environment where partners will also be accommodated throughout the whole stay.
“NBT is working with NHS South Gloucestershire, Birth Centre Bristol, the National Childbirth Trust and the architects to provide a high quality, well-designed, comfortably furnished unit that we hope will be an attractive option for women to give birth in.”
Pip A Ness, from Birth Centre Bristol (BCB), said: “At last Bristol women will be able to give birth in a midwife-led birth centre in their local community. BCB has been campaigning for birth centres throughout Bristol for seven years and this is the first of what we hope will be many.
“This fantastic new facility will be welcomed by both mothers and midwives.”
The Birth Centre forms an important part of the overall Cossham Hospital development. Work is due to get under way on site in February 2010 with the new facilities open for patients in late 2011.
Cossham Hospital currently provides limited diagnostic and outpatient services but after the redevelopment, will deliver a new range of state-of-the-art healthcare which will include double the number of outpatient appointments, a new minor injuries service, X-Ray, ultrasound, MRI and CT scanning, double the number of physiotherapy appointments, other therapy services such as speech and language and audiology and a new renal dialysis satellite unit.
The Birth Centre Bristol campaign was started by midwives in 2001 with the aim of setting up one or more birth centres in the NHS in the Bristol area. Hundreds of women from across Bristol supported the campaign and a petition was presented to the local PCTs in 2005.
