Women's Hospital Eclipses 5,000 births ... Again

In the past 7 ½ years, since opening in June of 2010, Methodist Women’s Hospital has delivered over 33,000 babies, enough to exceed the entire population of Kearney.

For the third straight year the Women’s Hospital has exceeded 5,000 births, bringing the total to 15,736 since 2015.

The 5,000 mark was first reached in 2015 (5,413), followed by 5,249 in 2016 and the just released 2017 numbers came in at 5,074.

"I’m certainly proud of our team of physicians, nurses and staff that have allowed us to be the hospital of choice for so many growing families,” said Sue Korth, vice president and chief operating officer for Methodist Women’s Hospital. “With the number of babies we deliver in a day and in a month it takes a total team effort to make that possible. Our staff take great pride in making every families’ birth experience special.”

Other 2017 highlights:

• Women’s Hospital averaged 423 births a month, an average of 14 births a day. August was the exception when 493 babies were delivered.
   
• A record of 29 babies in 24 hours was set on May 4, only to see that record tied one week later.
   
• Staff welcomed their third set of quadruplets in 2017, since opening the hospital in 2010.

• A rare set of spontaneous identical triplets were delivered in 2017. The hospital had another case of the rare triplets in 2015.

• Speaking of multiples, a total of 154 sets of multiples were welcomed in 2017 – 146 of those were sets of twins.

• The recently expanded Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) cared for more than 700 babies in 2017 – 750 to be exact. This was the third year of providing care to more than 700 of the region’s smallest babies (see photo above).