Express & Star

New birth unit set to open at end of month

A £1.6 million new maternity unit that will cater for up to 1,000 women a year will open its doors by the end of this month, hospital bosses have announced.

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The new facility at Wolverhampton's New Cross Hospital will boast five birthing rooms all of which have en-suite facilities. The official opening of the midwife-led unit will take place on October 25 but it is likely it will be in operation before that. The ribbon will be cut by Olympic bronze medal gymnast Kristian Thomas, whose mother is a midwife at the hospital.

The unit will be available to expectant mothers who are classed as low risk.

Hospital bosses say the facility will offer a comfortable, 'homely' birthing environment and it will be staffed with "highly experienced midwives".

As well as the en-suite facilities the five birthing rooms will also have music centres and televisions and the latest state-of-the-art birthing equipment.

Three birthing pools within the unit also offer women the choice of labouring and giving birth in the water.

Soft furnishing and gentle lighting will also be used to provide a "calm and relaxing atmosphere" for the new mums as well as their birth partners and family.

Health bosses say each area within the unit "has been planned carefully to maximise the potential of promoting and enhancing normal birth".

Midwifery led unit manager, Lyndsay Durkin said: "The unit is something we are all very proud of and we are all really excited that Kristian has agreed to perform the opening. He was our natural choice; not only was he born at New Cross Hospital but his mother Cath has been a New Cross midwife for 27 years."

The opening of the new unit comes in the wake of a baby boom at the hospital in recent times - 372 were born in one month alone in December last year.

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