About our birthing services
The Birth Center at Logan Health – Whitefish offers families a serene environment to create a calming experience during your stay. Your family will be cared for by your chosen provider, and a team of knowledgeable caregivers.
Our genuinely caring, attentive and experienced obstetric nurses provide one-on-one attention and support during labor and hands-on bedside care during your stay. All nurses are trained in electronic fetal monitoring, neonatal resuscitation and participate in ongoing emergency simulations to provide the safest care for you and your baby. After birth, they will assist you with breastfeeding and infant care.
Amenities
The Birth Center staff collaborates with obstetricians, family practice physicians, and certified nurse midwives to do everything possible in making each parent’s wishes come true, including a variety of options to make your labor, delivery, and postpartum more comfortable. The Birth Center works hard every day to maintain an extremely high approval rating, 98 percent breastfeeding success rate, and a C-section rate that is well below the national average.
Here you will find personalized care in a warm, homelike environment to help you relax and rejoice in your birth experience, including:
- Large rooms with queen-size memory foam beds
- Free hospital internet and television
- Patient-centered care with one-on-one nursing attention during labor
- Jetted tubs for relaxation and water births
- In-room daybeds or fully reclining loungers for the comfort of overnight guest
- Professional, complimentary infant photography session by Lot 22 Photography
- In-room massage
- Delicious food including Cuisine-on-Call service
- Infant swaddle to take home as our gift to you and your baby
Pain management
Available options include supported, unmedicated birth and nonpharmacological pain management such as massage, music, and aromatherapy, as well as pain management resources such as nitrous oxide gas, narcotics (Fentanyl, etc.), epidurals and intrathecals.
Nurses provide labor support with comfort measures, breathing techniques, and birthing position suggestions. Anesthesiologists are available 24 hours a day for administering pain medications.
Cesarean sections
Although many cesarean sections are not planned and our cesarean section rate is well below the national average, it is comforting to know that board-certified OB/GYN physicians and anesthesiologists are readily available at Logan Health – Whitefish if an emergency arises. Our surgical suite is just steps away from The Birth Center should a cesarean section become necessary for your or your baby’s health.
Water birth
Many women find that the built-in or portable birth tubs reduce pain during labor and birth, and most women who experience a water birth say they wouldn’t do it any other way. A warm and soothing whirlpool is available for those who desire to labor in a tub, and an AquaDoula tub or built-in tubs are available for water births. Logan Health – Whitefish’s Birth Center is one of the few hospitals in Montana to offer water births. If you are interested in having a water birth, please discuss this option with your doctor or midwife prior to arriving for labor.
Baby-friendly hospital designation
In 2018, Logan Health – Whitefish was designated as a Baby Friendly Hospital, which is a high level designation overseen by Baby Friendly USA.
Baby Friendly designation involves a hospital-wide focus on keeping babies and families together and reducing stress during the birth experience. Logan Health – Whitefish has always supported programs such as rooming in, when newborns stay in-room with their parents; breastfeeding first, to encourage all women who are able to breastfeed if possible; and skin-to-skin contact, allowing mothers to hold their newborn babies immediately after birth.
In addition, The Birth Center educates patients about the benefits of breastfeeding and family togetherness during the prenatal and postnatal periods. The objective of Baby Friendly is to provide education so that parents can make informed decisions about their feeding choices and hospital stay.
For more about the Baby Friendly USA hospital initiative, visit their website: https://www.babyfriendlyusa.org/
Infant safe sleep hospital certification
In 2023, Logan Health – Whitefish became a National Certified Gold Safe Sleep Hospital through Cribs for Kids. The Gold Safe Sleep Certification is the highest certification a hospital can achieve. This program recognizes hospitals for their commitment to infant safe sleep to reduce infant sleep-related deaths by establishing a hospital infant safe sleep policy, modeling infant safe sleep throughout the hospital, educating the community and providing a safe sleep environment when needed.
Safe sleep can help protect your baby from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and other dangers.
Why practice safe sleep?
- The highest risk period of SIDS is between one month and four months of age, but can occur up to one year of age.
- The side lying or stomach position increases the risk of the infant rebreathing their own exhaled breath. This could cause the infant to breathe in more carbon dioxide than oxygen. Without a proper response from the infant, this could lead to death.
- Bed-sharing increases the risk of SIDS threefold and smoking increases the risk of SIDS sixfold.
- Infants are actually more likely to choke or aspirate when lying on their stomachs.
What is a safe sleep environment?
- Place the baby on their back for every sleep.
- Use a firm sleep surface with only a tight fitted sheet. The risk of SIDS increases fivefold with the use of soft bedding.
- No loose bedding, blankets, bumpers, or stuffed animals in the sleeping area. Decorate the room, not the bed. With current crib safety standards, bumper pads are unnecessary.
- Use a wearable blanket or sleeper onesie to keep the baby warm. Blankets are no longer recommended and the use of a sleep sack is preferred over a blanket to decrease the risk of a blanket covering the infant’s head or face.
- The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends avoiding hats or head coverings when the baby is sleeping.
- Infants should sleep in the same room, but not in the same bed as the parents for at least the first six months. This can decrease the risk of SIDS by 50 percent.
- Put baby in the crib for sleeping. The risk of SIDS for an infant sleeping on a couch with someone increases 50 times due to suffocation risk.
- Keep the room at a comfortable temperature and avoid overheating the infant. As a general rule, dress the infant in one additional layer from what an adult is comfortable in.
- If a pacifier is used, it should not have any strings, tethers, or stuffed animals attached.
- Maintain a smoke-free sleeping environment.
Additional ways to decrease the risk of SIDS:
- Breastfeeding is associated with a decrease in the risk of SIDS.
- Twenty percent of SIDS deaths occur while in the care of a childcare provider, so it’s important to tell anyone and everyone that takes care of your baby what the latest safe sleep practices are.
- Teach siblings about safe sleep practices.
- Avoid smoke exposure during pregnancy and after birth. There is not only firsthand and secondhand smoke to worry about, but also thirdhand smoke, which can take at least three washes to remove particles from clothing, hair, and furniture.
- Avoid alcohol and illicit drug use during pregnancy and after birth.
- After breastfeeding is established, offer a pacifier at naptime and bedtime.
- Provide supervised, awake tummy time to promote development.
Resources:
Contact us
Pre-registration and patient access: Click HERE to pre-register for your birth, or call (406) 863-3508
The Birth Center at Logan Health – Whitefish
1600 Hospital Way
Whitefish, MT 59937
Phone: (406) 863-3535
Fax: (406) 863-3695
Support clinic
Visits to the clinic bridge the gap between going home and seeing your care provider or pediatrician in their office. This appointment will be scheduled with you prior to your discharge from the hospital. The clinic also is available for a weight check, jaundice evaluation, breastfeeding support or to get answers to any questions you may have about your new baby.
Mom/Baby Support Clinic – Logan Health Whitefish
1600 Hospital Way
Whitefish, MT 59937
Phone: (406) 863-3471