Did You Know?
UI Maternity Center
Approximately 1,800 patients are delivered annually at UI Maternity Center. In keeping with our tertiary care role, a large proportion of these births represent complicated or high–risk conditions. The combination of extensive physician and staff specialty training means we are prepared to handle everything from normal vaginal deliveries or normal weight babies to Cesarean section deliveries of babies as small as one pound. Our certified nurse midwives are highly skilled health professionals who draw on the resources of modern medicine in order to offer personal, family–centered care. The Labor–Delivery Suite and Neonatal Intensive Care Unit is a state–of–the–art facility providing total care for the mother and her newborn. It incorporates both modern technological advances as well as facilities for the family–oriented approach to patient care.
UI Women's Health
Our women's health services focus on all aspects of health for women, whether it is gynecology or obstetrical needs to cardiology consultations, nutritional guidance or mental health services. UI Women’s Health strives to be a partner in the care of a woman throughout her lifetime while also furthering ground–breaking research and innovation and educating the tomorrow's health care leaders.
UI Health Care partners with the March of Dimes to promote ways to reduce prematurity. In addition to the clinical expertise at UI Hospitals and Clinics aimed at preventing prematurity, UI Health Care researchers are working in laboratories to understand what causes preterm labor in the hope of developing new treatments to prevent the problem. Iowa is making progress toward improving two factors that contribute to premature birth–women who smoke has dropped from 23.6 percent to 20.3 percent, and the rate of late preterm birth (births between 34 to 36 weeks of gestation) has dropped from 8.4 to 8 percent. Additionally UI Hospitals and Clinics recently participated in a University Health System Consortium obstetrics benchmarking project — which evaluated several aspects of obstetrical care. UI Hospitals and Clinics was named one of two better performers on the key performance measures — including a low incidence of scheduled inductions/planned c–sections at less that 39 week gestation.
Advanced Reproductive Care
The Center for Advanced Reproductive Care is a national leader for single embryo transfers. This method contributes to the health and safety of both mother and child and has resulted in more than 3,000 deliveries. The Center brings together board-certified reproductive endocrinologists, urologists, specialized nurses, embryologists, and andrologists who offer a full range of state–of–the–art treatment options. Our program was Iowa's first In Vitro Fertilization program. Our delivery rate is consistently above 50 percent per oocyte retrieval for women under age 35 for the past five years. We were the first in Iowa to establish a formal donor embryo program.