Celebrating an upcoming delivery for moms and babies

October is a big month for moms and babies at Abbott Northwestern.

On Oct. 5, the hospital, in partnership with the Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota, will celebrate their ground breaking on a new state-of-the-art birthing center with a due date of fall 2012. The new building - The Mother Baby Center at Abbott Northwestern and Minneapolis Children's - will be located on Children’s Minneapolis campus with a skyway to Abbott Northwestern.

On Oct. 15, the Abbott Northwestern Hospital Foundation will host its annual Medicine Ball with this year’s theme being Fête des Mères, a very French festival of Motherhood. Proceeds will benefit the new birth center.

The new, four-story, 96,000-square-foot center will fully integrate Abbott Northwestern’s maternal assessment, labor and delivery, ante-partum and post-partum units, and newborn and special care nurseries with Childern’s neonatal intensive care units. Moms and their newborns will be just steps away from all of Children’s specialists and services.

“Currently, mothers of critically ill babies remain at Abbott Northwestern while their infants are transferred to the NICU at Children's, which leads to a separation at a critical time,” said Penny Wheeler, MD, chief medical officer of Allina Hospitals & Clinics, who is also an obstetrician and gynecologist. “By bringing our services together, we create a center that allows us to keep families together, which is a goal for both our organizations, and offers the best quality and experience for those we serve.”