Deaconess Opens Mom Supermall

Women with high-risk pregnancies now have one-stop shopping at Deaconess Medical Center.

The new Deaconess Center for Perinatal Medicine offers women three-dimensional ultrasounds, breast-feeding consultations, non-stress testing and genetic counseling - all under one roof.

“It’s kind of like Fred Meyer,” said Cindy Preston, assistant vice president for women and children’s services at Deaconess. “They can have all their services in one area. There’s good parking.”

The center, which cost about $1 million to build and equip, is in a hallway stretching from the Deaconess lobby to the Women’s and Children’s Center.

On Friday, the center was opened to staff members for an open house.

The center’s technology is state-of-the-art, said Dr. Cherie Johnson, one of four perinatologists staffing the operation.

Patients’ progress is recorded on computerized charts. Two 3-D ultrasound machines, which cost about $250,000 apiece, can rotate color pictures of a fetus or an ovary. They allow perinatologists to accurately evaluate a baby’s development in the womb.

“There’s a little punkin at eight weeks,” said Johnson, spinning one image.

The center makes it possible for a woman to have an ultrasound at Deaconess, have a recommendation made to the referring doctor and then have treatment started immediately.

Those treatments include performing amniocentesis, sending medication to the fetus, drawing blood from the fetus, transfusing blood for the fetus and draining fluid from certain cavities of the unborn child.

Once the baby is born, lactation specialists can work with new mothers to help with breastfeeding. Workers said the new center helps them help patients.

“This is a lot easier,” said registered nurse Cecelia Zwick, a lactation specialist wearing pins proclaiming “Mother’s Milk Is Liquid Love” and “Breast Is Best.”

“We’re not running as far. We can see a lot more of the patients.”

, DataTimes