Childbirth Center at St. Joseph Hospital

The Childbirth Center at St. Joseph Hospital delivers state-of-the-art maternity care to families from a dedicated team of Obstetricians, Certified Nurse-Midwives, Registered Nurses, and RN Certified Lactation Consultants.

To meet our team of providers, click here.

For more information on Certified Nurse Midwives, click here.

For education, information and support during pregnancy and beyond, visit our Classes and Events page.

Personalized, Family-Centered Care

Bringing a child into the world will change your life in wonderful and unforgettable ways. The staff at the Childbirth Center look forward to sharing this very special time with you.

At St. Joseph Hospital, we know that pregnancy and childbirth can bring loved ones even closer together. That’s why we offer family-centered maternity care that is designed to focus on the needs of mother, baby and family.

Our compassionate nursing staff is specially trained to provide you and your family with skill and support during your entire stay. Our goal is to promote a healthy labor and delivery tailored to your needs, focusing on rest, recovery and bonding after delivery.

With the help of your childbirth team, you can deliver your baby in an environment that works for you. A variety of pain control options to alleviate the discomforts of labor are available, including water immersion, walking, birthing balls, nitrous oxide, and patient-controlled epidural (you choose when you need an extra dose of pain relief) as well as lighting, aromatherapy and music.

Our Childbirth Center promotes immediate and uninterrupted skin-to-skin contact for mothers and their babies, including in the operating and recovery room after a cesarean section. We call this special time The Golden Hour. We encourage use of this time for bonding, breastfeeding, and focusing on your new family.

Quality Care with Heart

Our Childbirth Center Staff is proud of the outstanding care we deliver to families and newborns. California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative (CMQCC) has recognized St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka for reducing the number of unnecessary cesarean sections to well below state standards. This number will drop even lower with our recent launch of TOLAC and VBAC Services.

TOLAC (Trial of Labor after Cesarean) is a planned attempt to labor by a woman who has previously undergone a cesarean delivery and desires a subsequent vaginal delivery. VBAC (Vaginal Birth after Cesarean) is a “successful” trail of labor that results in a vaginal birth.

TOLAC/VBAC comes with both risks and benefits- your physician will discuss these with you at length during your prenatal care to help you make the best choice for you and your family.

Breastfeeding Support

Our RN IBCLC Lactation Consultants are here to offer a wide variety of breastfeeding services to you including individual consultation, breastfeeding support groups, follow-up phone check-ups and outpatient visits after discharge to help you maintain breastfeeding and manage common difficulties.

The Childbirth Center follows the World Health Organization (WHO) Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding, a set of internationally recognized evidence-based maternity care practices that have been shown to increase breastfeeding initiation and duration. Following these guidelines ensures that our staff has the knowledge, competence and skills to support you and your breastfeeding goals.

Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU)

We offer our patients the only Level II Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) on the North Coast. Our Level II Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at St. Joseph Hospital combines advanced technology and specially trained health care professionals to provide your newborn highly specialized care if the need arises.

Our NICU registered nurses are S.T.A.B.L.E© program certified, which provides advanced training for neonatal resuscitation, stabilization, and continued care for sick or premature babies.

We are proud to participate in the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco Perinatal Outreach Program.

Our partnership with UCSF provides around-the-clock clinical consultation from maternal-fetal medicine specialists and neonatologists, emergency response drills and simulations, and continuing education courses for our health care providers.

Our Caring Continues Long After You Go Home

We focus on giving you and your new family all of the support and information you will need to care for yourself and your baby once you go home. You will be contacted by one of our Lactation Consultants after discharge and will have the opportunity to get feeding and care advice as well as infant weight checks at an outpatient lactation visit.