The Medical Center’s Women and Newborn Services Department was honored Thursday for going six months without an early elective delivery. 

Melanie Moch, the Kentucky Hospital Association’s director of data collection and training, presented the WNS staff with a banner reading “The Medical Center is committed to improving the quality of care for moms and babies” for its success in reducing the number of patients opting to have their babies delivered before 39 weeks. 

According to Moch, The Medical Center’s efforts have been part of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Hospital Engagement Network, which began in 2012. The 76 hospitals participating in Kentucky’s HEN have been working to reduce occurrences of early elective deliveries, maternal hemorrhages and pre-eclampsia, she said. 

“The Medical Center has participated actively in the … project and we applaud the team’s fantastic efforts and results,” she said to the WNS staff shortly after handing the banner to them.  

KHA partnered with March of Dimes on a banner program to recognize hospitals that succeeded in lowering their rates of early deliveries, according to a KHA news release.   

“This will help educate the community and let them know that they’re taking this initiative and that the mothers and babies are totally safe here,” Moch said. 

She said one of the qualifications for receiving the banner is going six months with 3 percent of births or less being early elective deliveries. The Medical Center went from October 2015 to March without an early delivery, she said. 

Caitlin Burklow, head of Women and Newborn Services, said she’s thrilled about the banner and the progress it indicates.  

“This is an honor that we received this,” she said. “I think it shows our dedication to the mothers of southcentral Kentucky.” 

To improve the safety of pregnant women and their babies, The Medical Center is participating in March of Dimes’ Healthy Babies are Worth the Wait initiative, she said. 

According to the MoD’s website, one of the initiative’s main goals is to decrease preterm births.  

To reduce the number of early deliveries, The Medical Center has been educating patients about the benefits of waiting until the end of the term to give birth, she said. 

The hospital has distributed materials March of Dimes has provided to prenatal classes and they have also been made available at local obstetricians’ offices, Burklow said. 

Carrying a baby to full term has numerous health benefits, Burklow said, adding that a baby’s brain and lungs might not be fully developed until 39 weeks of gestation. 

At 35 weeks, a baby’s brain weighs two thirds of what it weighs at 39 to 40 weeks, she said. 

“It’s better, if they can, to wait and go full term,” she said. “It gets all their systems to the point where they need to be.”

— Follow reporter Jackson French on Twitter @Jackson_French or visit bgdailynews.com.