Neonatology

While most babies are born exactly when they should be and in the best of health, it’s still reassuring to know that we offer services for those rare times when babies need a little extra help. Central Maine Healthcare has a Special Care Nursery available for those babies and their families. We have the best providers and nurses on our team who use the latest in technology, skills, and compassion to care for your little one.

Local Care So You Can Get Help… Quickly!

Our Special Care Nursery is located at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, which is a quick drive from Bridgton or Rumford. If you give birth in either of those two hospitals, our transport team will quickly and carefully transport your baby to our caring team in Lewiston in under 30 minutes.

Specialized Care for Your Baby

We specialize in caring for babies born with medical conditions. Our providers and nurses have special training and are skilled at evaluating and diagnosing infant conditions. As a result, you have the peace of mind, knowing that should any complications arise, we have specialized care waiting just for you and your baby. Our team works closely with infants’ families to create care plans as needed. We’ll help plan what services might be needed, including post-discharge care and home-care services.

Free Accommodations for Extra Support

If your baby requires extended care and traveling to CMMC is an issue, we have a hospitality house, Arbor House, to accommodate you and your family. The 15-bedroom building has a common room, a fully equipped kitchen, dining room, library, laundry facilities, a patio and a garden. Arbor House is free for its visitors and is supported through community donations. For more information: Call CMMC’s Arbor House Scheduler: 795-2691.

At Central Maine Healthcare, your birth experience is our number one priority. We want to make sure you and your baby are happy and healthy while you’re under our care. We work hard to provide you and your family with the assistance, resources and support that you’ll need.

Cozy Birthing Rooms: Our signature care offering is the priority we place on your comfort. The birthing suites at Central Maine Medical Center are designed to enhance privacy and comfort. The rooms include amenities such as access to labor tubs, televisions, and delicious meals. There’s plenty of space for a spouse or partner to spend the night with you.

Other Options You’ll Enjoy: We don’t just make you cozy in your room, we’ve taken the time to enhance our services to make you feel relaxed, safe, and supported in your birthing choices. Here are a few of the other options you can choose when you give birth at our hospitals.

• Special Comforts: We offer a variety of comforting services, ranging from labor tubs for relaxation, security systems to make you feel safe, and homelike rooms to ensure you feel truly cared for by our team.
• Alternate Therapies: For those interested in other ways to reduce the pain of labor and enhance relaxation, we offer complementary services such as massage, birthing balls, and more!
• Caring for Your Baby: We want you to feel successful as a new parent, so we offer several services after your baby is born. These include access to lactation consultants to help with breastfeeding and feeding issues, hearing tests and any other diagnostic testing your baby may need, birth certificate filing, and help sending in birth announcements.
• HUGS Security System: We ensure the safety of your newborn with our state-of-the art Hugs® security system. Newborns have an electronic tag attached to one foot, which allows them to be monitored 24/7. We consider the safety and security of our patients – especially our youngest – to be a top priority!

Alternate Therapies

At Central Maine Healthcare, we know that every birth is unique, and every woman has different needs. That’s why we’ve expanded our comfort options to include additional supportive resources for those who would like access to them.

A Full Range of Comfort Options: To make your birth experience more relaxing, our hospitals offer various alternative therapies including:

• Acupressure: Gentle pressure is applied to strategic points to help relieve pain during childbirth. This ancient practice, also called Shiatsu, is related both to massage and acupuncture.
• Aromatherapy: The careful use of essential oils has been shown to reduce many women’s pain and anxiety during childbirth. Scents like lavender and rose have even been shown in some studies to reduce the need for pain medication.
• Birthing balls: A large, bouncy therapy ball can help a birthing mother get into a variety of positions that are more comfortable than lying in bed. Sitting or leaning on a ball can help a woman maintain a squat that is helpful for labor. It also makes it easier for her support person to offer a back massage.
• Hydrotherapy: Hydrotherapy is just as it sounds: Laboring moms soak in a tub for part or all of labor. The warm water from the tub or a shower promote relaxation and reduce pain for many women.
• Music therapy: Your favorite music can provide a distraction from the pain of childbirth and create a more relaxed environment for everyone involved.
• Doulas: A doula is a non-medical person trained in the art of supporting a woman through the experience of giving birth. They act as a labor coach and as an advisor and resource for the woman and her partner and family before, during, and after delivery. We don’t have doulas on staff, but we are supportive of patients who hire doulas to help them.

Most families only stay with us for a couple of nights, but every effort is made to make this time a positive and memorable experience. Let us know how we can make your birth experience more comfortable.

HUGS Security System

When you give birth with us, you get our sincere concern for your safety and peace of mind. That means we’ve invested a lot of time and thought into protecting your new little one and you while you’re in our care. To do that, we offer the state-of-the-art Hugs® security system to track and protect your newborn.

What is the Hugs® Security System? The Hugs® security system is a special system in which we attach an electronic tag to one foot of your newborn. This allows them to be monitored around the clock, so we always know that they’re snug in their bassinet or with you and that they’re doing just fine.

 Additional Security Measures:
We also add more security by making our birthing centers locked units, which means we have put into place secure systems of check-in and check-out and require all our team members to wear photo ID badges.
We consider the safety and security of our patients – especially our youngest! – to be a top priority. If you have any questions or concerns about security, please feel free to reach out to discuss them with us.

Special Comforts

When you give birth at Central Maine Medical Center, we want to make sure you are truly comfortable during your stay. We go the extra mile to support your spouse or partner and to offer safety and security, so you can just relax.

Comfortable Birthing Rooms: Each of our birthing rooms are designed with relaxation in mind and offer the warmth and comfort of home. These rooms are made so that your partner or other support person can stay with you comfortably, including delicious meals, a private birthing room, access to a labor tub and other comfort options to help ease you through your labor. We want you to feel relaxed and cared for while you’re under our care!

Newborn Safety is Our Priority: For your safety, our hospital features the state-of-the-art Hugs® security program, an electronic tracking system that protects your precious newborn. Knowing your new baby is safe, you can get the rest that you need while knowing that you’re both in good hands.

Helping You Rest and Recover: Our team also wants to ensure that moms and their newborns have the quiet and alone time they need. We encourage visitors to be respectful of this special time and we enforce our visitor policies, so you can rest as much as possible. We also offer alternate therapies for those moms seeking expanded options to pain relief and comfort measures.

Caring For Your Baby

Whether you choose to breastfeed or formula-feed your baby, our nurses are here to help. First-time mothers may need a few tips to adjust to their newborn’s needs.
If you have decided to breastfeed, we have lactation consultants available to help new moms learn effective breastfeeding positions and techniques. We also offer free breastfeeding classes and a breastfeeding support group that meets once a week to ensure that you’ve got all the help you need to be successful.

Certified Lactation Consultants: Our lactation consultants are certified by the International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners (IBCLE) and are also registered nurses. They are available for consultation prior to your delivery, during your stay, and can also be available to help after you go home. The lactation consultants work closely with the nurses in labor, delivery, and in the NICU to ensure a positive breastfeeding experience for you and your baby.

Newborn Health Tests and Procedures: We want the best for your baby and that means ensuring that they are healthy. We follow the Maine law requirement to test newborns for health and hearing conditions, to help provide the best care for your new baby. Newborns don’t always display symptoms of issues at birth, so these screening exams help us detect problems early when they can be corrected the most easily. One of the tests we offer is the Newborn Bloodspot Screening test, which can detect serious health issues that are thankfully rare but may impede development or even be fatal. The hearing tests that we offer are important because speaking and language skills are dependent upon a child’s ability to hear well.

Hepatitis B Vaccination: This vaccination is an important health precaution that can be started right after your baby is born. Make sure to have a chat about it with your provider before or right after birth. Typically, the vaccination requires three injections given over the course of 18 months. It’s recommended that the first injection be given soon after birth or at least within your new baby’s first two months.

Other Vaccinations: Other vaccinations will need to be given in the first year of your baby’s life, so it’s important to start learning about them now while you’re pregnant. Talk to your healthcare provider about what vaccinations are recommended and when they should be given so that you know how to make the best choices for your baby.

Paternity Paperwork: If you need to fill out paternity papers, both parents must sign the paternity form in front of a notary public. You may get the papers notarized at your hospital’s birthing unit. We would be happy to help you with this process, if needed.

Your Baby’s Birth Certificate: Filling out your baby’s birth certificate can be an exciting experience as it is the first legal documentation of their birth and new name! After your baby is born, we will provide you with the necessary paperwork that you can complete. For your convenience, we will then send in the paperwork for you to your city or town office, and then you can get back to enjoying your new little one.
Your baby’s birth certificate is a valuable legal document. It is often required to obtain other documents, as a person goes through life. The birth certificate shows that a person is a natural-born citizen of the United States of America. A birth certificate provides proof of age and identity. This is important for inheritance reasons and for obtaining rights to travel to foreign countries.
Your baby’s birth certificate will include the following information:

• Full Name (first, middle, last)
• Place of Birth
• Date and Time of Birth
• Parents’ Names

A birth certificate is also needed, in most cases, for the following:

• Social Security number
• Entrance to school
• Work permits
• Travel
• Driver’s license
• Marriage license
• Welfare benefits
• Entrance to the Armed Forces

Your newborn’s birth certificate also helps healthcare providers by providing vital information related to the health of your baby. This information can be used for planning maternal and child health programs and to provide quality care for your own child and family. Some of the information requested when you complete the birth certificate form is personal. This information is considered confidential and will help with statistical information and medical research. Please try to make sure that the information in the birth certificate form is as complete and accurate as possible. We would be happy to answer questions and help you as needed.

Sometimes when the birth certificate form is being filled out, parents can have legal questions about the information needed. You might be divorced or not married, causing you to feel concern about what legal name to give your child or how to include the name of the other parent on the certificate. We would love to help you puzzle out legal issues so that you can get all the information correct.

If you discover an error on your child’s birth certificate later, contact the municipal clerk of the city or town where your child was born. The clerk will assist you in the proper procedures for making corrections.

Copies of your child’s birth certificate may be obtained from the city or town clerk at the birthplace, from the city or town clerk where the mother was residing at the time of the child’s birth, or from the state’s Office of Vital Records (1-800-606-0215). A fee is charged for copies.
This copy has been adapted from the State of Maine Department of Health and Human Services Bureau of Health Office of Vital Records, State House Station 11, Augusta, ME 04333-0011.

Birth Announcements: Congratulations – you just had a new baby! Share the joyous news with your community by filling out a birth announcement form while you’re staying here with us. We can help you get it submitted to your local newspaper so that your family, friends, and neighbors can celebrate right along with you.

Our hospital teams of well-trained providers, nurses, and support staff are friendly, helpful and knowledgeable. From the moment you tour our birth center, you’ll feel the warm support that we cultivate for our clients. When you birth with us, you’ll get your own all-in-one birthing room that’s big enough for you and your partner.

We stay up-to-date on the latest technology while also prioritizing our commitment to person-centered care. Our teams will make sure that you and your baby receive the best care, which means we’ll be there to listen, support, and help you through this exciting time.

The Best Care for Our Community Families

Childbirth classes and more: We offer childbirth classes at all our hospitals, as well as a selection of other classes including breastfeeding.  We even offer a class to help you stop smoking. We want you and your family to have a successful pregnancy, birth, and beyond!

Cozy birthing rooms: Our birth suites are all-in-one, meaning that you can settle into your birthing room without needing to be disrupted after your baby is born. We focus on comfort and convenience, so you can focus on giving birth and recovering. There’s plenty of room for your support person, and they’re welcome to stay overnight with you.

Caring support: Our nurses are trained and skilled in everything you’ll need throughout labor, birth, and postpartum, and they deliver that care with compassion. We have lactation consultant nurses available to help you get the best start with breastfeeding your new little one.

Pain management options: We have anesthesiologists available for pain relief, as well as alternative therapies to help you cope. Our birthing center has labor tubs available for relaxation, and you can request other alternate therapies and pain relief options to get smoothly through your birth experience.

Extra help for your little one: We are ready for anything that might happen during your birth, including the unlikely event that your baby might need a little extra help. Located at our hospital in Lewiston, Central Maine Medical Center, our providers and nurses are ready to receive your precious baby to care for him or her. We are available around the clock and provide care for premature babies (35 or more weeks of gestation) and those with special needs.

HUGS ® security system: Your safety and security are an important concern to us, so we use the HUGS ® system of infant security. Newborns have an electronic tag attached to one foot, which allows them to be monitored 24/7. Our birthing center is a locked unit, with secure systems of checking in and out, and we also require our team members to wear photo ID badges.

Quality and complete postpartum care: After your baby is born, we will work with you to establish breastfeeding and ensure that you have the community resources that you need to be a successful new parent. After you leave the hospital, you’ll still have easy access to our team for any questions you might have about your recovery or the health of your new little bundle of joy.

Our Birthing Center at Central Maine Medical Center

At Central Maine Healthcare, you’ll receive the best care in our birthing unit whether this is your first baby or are adding another child to your family. Our birthing rooms are designed to enhance privacy and comfort. We include amenities such as labor tubs located close to your room, which help ease you through labor and television to help pass the time. We encourage your partner, coach or another family member to stay overnight.

We offer a variety of special comforts to help with labor, breastfeeding support, and the best in postpartum care. You can rest easy knowing that we offer 24-hour cesarean services for those rare emergencies and a Level 2 neonatal intensive care unit. Our hospital also includes the newest in technology to ensure that your family is safe and cozy throughout their stay.

Need an OB/GYN? Find a caring provider anytime online.

To schedule a tour of our birth center call 207-795-2528.

Baby-Friendly Designation

Central Maine Medical Center has earned the designation of Baby-Friendly, which is an initiative put together and sponsored by the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund.

The central goal of the Baby-Friendly initiative is to promote breastfeeding. As a result, we provide new mothers with optimal care, information, and instruction so they can successfully breastfeed their babies. Our Baby-Friendly hospital achieved this designation in recent years. By being “baby-friendly,” it means that we have gone the extra steps to meet guidelines including comprehensive training of our team members.

The Baby-Friendly initiative was started because of extensive medical research that shows that breastfeeding promotes good health throughout life, for babies and nursing mothers. As part of our Baby-Friendly practices, we have 24-hour rooming in, where baby stays in your room throughout your stay so that you learn about your new baby’s feeding cues. We strive to promote mother-infant bonding. We encourage skin-to-skin care, a practice that enhances bonding and encourages more feeds between mother and baby. We also recognize that not all new mothers will be able to breastfeed – be assured that we are here to assist you with formula feeding, as well.

If you have never breastfed a baby, our nurses are skilled at basic breastfeeding assistance and lactation consultants will provide follow-up care to ensure that mom and baby are doing well. We can show you how best to hold your baby, how to help him/her latch on, and how to express milk. As a Baby-Friendly hospital, we offer numerous and free resources to help breastfeeding moms. Check our Childbirth Education Events Calendar for information about breastfeeding classes, and our breastfeeding support group. And after you leave to go home, remember, our lactation consultants are just a phone call away.

We also offer breastfeeding classes that are open to any expectant mother who is considering breastfeeding her baby. Women who attend are strongly encouraged to bring their support person to the class. Topics covered in the class include the benefits of breastfeeding, skills and techniques during the first days of breastfeeding, and breast care.