Family Birthing Services: Ochsner Lafayette General

Ochsner Lafayette General Medical Center physicians and staff recognize that every woman is different, and each childbirth experience will be distinctive and personalized. We also believe in keeping your family together, so no special moment is lost.

If you are interested in the mother/baby model of care, where your baby is not just another face in the crowd and you have choices in all aspects of pregnancy and labor and delivery, then you’ll feel right at home at Ochsner Lafayette General Medical Center.

In fact, maternal-newborn and pediatric services are constructed to feel more like home. From the expanded family waiting area with adjoining break room to more comfortable sleeping couches, the mother/baby suites and labor and delivery rooms at Ochsner Lafayette General Medical Center are designed with patients and their families in mind, with large, elegant and comfortable styling and special amenities like a mini fridge.

Ochsner Lafayette General Medical Center's continued commitment to outstanding care for mothers and babies has been recognized through our Louisiana Perinatal Quality Collaborative (LaPQC) Birth Ready+ and Gift designations from the Louisiana Department of Health. This honor recognizes OLG as a location that has worked hard to implement and sustain the necessary processes, policies, and educational structures to ensure safe, equitable, and dignified births for all families.

Ochsner Lafayette General Medical Center earned the High Performing in Maternity Care (Uncomplicated Pregnancy) rating from U.S. News & World Report. This is the highest rating award for maternity care, reserved for the top third of hospitals evaluated by U.S. News & World Report.

Newborns who need special or intensive care are often admitted into the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Ochsner Lafayette General Medical Center. The Level III NICU at Ochsner Lafayette General Medical Center is one of the most technologically advanced NICUs in the nine-parish Acadiana area with a capacity of 46 beds.

Caring for the tiniest patients requires a combination of precise skills, complex technology, specialized facilities and a caring, compassionate and knowledgeable staff. The NICU staff and physicians continually implement initiatives which improve patient care. The Ochsner Lafayette General Foundation has been involved in helping to provide a Total Body Cooling System for hypoxic infants, NICVIEW cameras and other innovations to continue the high standard of care required for our smallest patients.

In addition, Ochsner Lafayette General Medical Center provides a team of other professionals including physical therapists, respiratory therapists, dietitians, lactation consultants, occupational therapists, speech language pathologists, social workers and hospital chaplains.

Ochsner recognizes that not all NICU patients need the same level of care, therefore, the plan of care is structured into three stages. As babies progress, parents can transition to more independence and spend more time together. At each step, parents are educated how to care for their baby so that families are ready for discharge when that special day comes. Lactation consultants are well versed in helping mothers provide nutrient-rich breast milk, even while baby is in the NICU.

For our NICU graduates that were born at less than 33 weeks, Ochsner Lafayette General Medical Center offers a neurodevelopmental follow up clinic. This clinic allows our expert team of occupational and speech therapists to follow neurodevelopmental outcomes and provide parents and families with home education to continue to progress towards age-appropriate development. 

NICU Transport Team
When a newborn is in peril at another hospital, the NICU Transport Team of Ochsner Lafayette General rides to the rescue. The team is an emergency response crew that goes, at a moment’s notice, to nearby facilities requesting assistance with a sick or premature newborn beyond their scope of care. This voluntary group of RNs and respiratory therapists must complete a 40-hour transport education course as well as having continuing education requirements. The neonatologist or extra nurses accompany the team when necessary.

Patient Care Initiatives
Since 2006, the NICU staff and physicians have implemented several initiatives which have hard-wired a new approach to patient care. They include:

• Developed a collaborative Neonatal Nurse Practitioner Program
• Implemented formal, multi-disciplinary daily patient rounds
• Created multiple task forces to
  * Research nursing best practices
  * Revise existing policies to reflect these best practices
• Standardized the approach to patient care among all NICU healthcare professionals
• Strictly controlled the use of blood transfusions
• Minimized the routine use of antibiotics
• Strictly controlled the use of supplemental oxygen
• Changed the entire approach to ventilator care, resulting in decreased days on mechanical ventilators, decreased lung injury and significantly lower incidence of chronic lung disease
• Decreased length of time with central umbilical arterial and venous catheters in place

Milk Bank Depot
The demand for human donor milk in hospital neonatal intensive care units (NICU) continues to rise across the country. To help meet the need for accessible donor breast milk in Acadiana, Ochsner Lafayette General Medical Center opened the first milk bank depot in southwest Louisiana and third breast milk donation depot in the state. Please call 337-289-7785 or 337-289-7752 for more info.

Ochsner Lafayette General's Level III NICU is committed to improving the quality and safety of medical care for newborn infants and their families through our voluntary affiliation with the Vermont Oxford Network.

The Vermont Oxford Network (VON) is one of the largest neonatal performance databases in existence, with over 950 participating Neonatal Intensive Care Units around the world. They collect detailed information on newborn intensive care unit (NICU) performance and provide a benchmark for quality patient care. These are their key performance indicators (KPIs) that allow participating NICU's to see how their performance compares to the Network performance as a whole. In general, the KPIs represent complications of prematurity, and as such, the lower the rates of these complications, the better the care is likely to be.

Significant measurable improvements have been made since 2006, when orchestrated efforts were made to improve the approach to neonatal care in Ochsner Lafayette General Medical Center's NICU. All of the KPIs have consistently improved to the point where we now compare extremely favorably to all NICU's in the Vermont Oxford Network's database, and in many areas we are now consistently better than the majority of NICUs in Louisiana, the United States and around the world.

Ochsner Lafayette General Medical Center is a certified Blue Distinction Center for Maternity Care by Blue Cross Blue Shield, which means it demonstrates expertise and a commitment to quality care for vaginal and cesarean section deliveries. These centers demonstrate better overall patient satisfaction and a lower percentage of early elective deliveries.

At Ochsner Lafayette General Medical Center, you’ll never miss one miraculous moment of your journey. We encourage you to take a tour, either after a childbirth education class or by appointment. Call 337-289-7210 to prepare yourself and your family for that special day.

You can also email OLG-PrenatalClass@ochsner.org with any questions regarding your upcoming delivery or to schedule a phone call to receive personalized prenatal education from a labor & delivery nurse, postpartum nurse or lactation consultant.

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