Birth Rebirth Deer Park Hospital Is Having A Renaissance Of Deliveries

A considerate child, Brittany Jolene Reilly didn’t keep her parents, Sandra Albright and Chris Reilly, waiting.

She arrived on her due date last Thursday and made her debut before dinner time at Deer Park Hospital.

“I’m the designated pacer,” said Bill Reilly, Brittany’s grandfather, as he waited and paced outside the hospital’s lone delivery room earlier in the afternoon.

A lot more Deer Park area residents have paced the halls of the hospital since the arrival in 1993 of certified nurse-midwife Sharon Froese. While many small, community hospitals are moving away from deliveries because they don’t have the volume to support equipment and expertise, Deer Park’s facility is going in the other direction, says the hospital’s chief operating officer, Cathy Simchuk. A total hospital renovation beginning in December will include a second delivery room.

For Froese, delivering babies at Deer Park Hospital is “too cool. It’s a cross between a birth center and a home delivery. (Area women) don’t have to go somewhere that’s not their home,” to deliver, she says. The birth experience can be personal, individualized and laid back. And that’s what makes her job gratifying.

Besides, says Froese,”it’s the center of the universe. Birth is the center of life.”

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The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Story and photos by Sandra Bancroft-Billings