A patient room in the WVU Medicine Children’s Birthing Center includes recessed lighting, a place for the newborn to sleep or be examined, a bed for family and a birthing tub for patients who might want that option.
William Burns, M.D., left, is a Marshall Health obstetrician and gynecologist, medical director of the Center for Advanced Reproductive Medicine at Cabell Huntington Hospital and associate professor at the Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine.
A patient room in the WVU Medicine Children’s Birthing Center includes recessed lighting, a place for the newborn to sleep or be examined, a bed for family and a birthing tub for patients who might want that option.
WVU Medicine Children’s | Courtesy
Two area hospitals are celebrating their successful roles in the arrival of West Virginia’s newest residents — some of them born as the result of complicated pregnancies and complex deliveries.
“It was definitely a wild ride,” said Shelby Kimbrew, 26, a labor and delivery nurse who gave birth to her daughter, Aubrey, just over four months ago in the midst of a record-breaking year for births at the WVU Medicine Children’s Birthing Center in Morgantown.
Aubrey was one of more than 2,600 babies born at the center in 2023. The previous record was 2,356 births in 2021, before the birthing center opened in its current location.
Dr. Lawrence Glad, co-director of Labor and Delivery at WVU Medicine Children’s Hospital.
WVU Medicine Children’s | Courtesy
Dr. Lawrence Glad, co-director of Labor and Delivery at WVU Medicine Children’s Hospital, attributes the increase in part to the number of rural hospitals that have discontinued obstetrical services as well as the construction of the new center, which opened in September 2022.
He says the Children’s Birthing Center was built with mothers, babies and families in mind.
“What we’re trying to provide is both a comfortable environment that doesn’t look too much like the old sterile hospital environment and at the same time still have the ability to have all the technology right there at your hands. The lighting is recessed in the ceiling, so when we need to use specific lights to help with delivery, we can do that, but they’re not on all the time,” he said.
“We have lighting that changes colors based on what the patients may feel they would prefer during their delivery experience. Several of the rooms have actual birthing tubs. Having an actual bed for the father to stay in... We have a warm, comfortable, more of a homey environment.”
The facility and staff specialize in challenging deliveries.
“If they are preterm or delivering early, we can provide those services with our neonatal intensive care unit as well as our high-risk pregnancy specialists to make sure that those patients get the very best care possible,” he said.
New facility helped make difficult delivery easier
For Shelby Kimbrew, of Grafton, it was an easy decision to give birth to her daughter at the Morgantown Birthing Center, and not just because she works there.
“Being in the new hospital as opposed to the old hospital, it really was nice how quiet the rooms were,” she said.
“You can have visitors [and] you don’t feel like you’re on top of each (other).”
Aubrey Kimbrew weighed just 3.7 pounds when she was born in October, and spent 16 days in the hospital before she could come home.
SHELBY KIMBREW | Courtesy photos
Beyond that, Aubrey’s birth was more complicated than expected. Shelby had severe preeclampsia, a serious blood pressure condition that forced her to be hospitalized before delivery.
“Right when I was going to get induced we found out she was breech so I had to have a surprise c-section,” said Kimbrew.
Her daughter was small — just 3 pounds, 7 ounces at birth.
“And then I ended up having to stay there for about a week after she was born and stayed down in [the neonatal intensive care unit] for 16 days before she came home. So that was a little shocking. Even though I work there that was a little hard to wrap my head around.”
Shelby Kimbrew holds her day-old daughter, Aubrey.
SHELBY KIMBREW | Courtesy photo
Understanding the process as well as she did through her work was comforting, she said, and has given her a deeper appreciation for what her patients are experiencing.
“I would have delivered there regardless because of the NICU and having those high risk doctors in the same building,” she said. “It was comforting knowing that the people who are taking care of me are well versed in all of that stuff.”
Meanwhile, a few hours away, another West Virginia medical facility is also celebrating the state’s youngest residents.
Cabell Huntington Hospital’s Center for Advanced Reproductive Medicine exceeded the national average for in vitro fertilization pregnancy rates in 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Center’s success rates for patients younger than 35 years of age were 75% last year, compared to national success rates of 51.1% for patients of the same age group.
William Burns, M.D., left, is a Marshall Health obstetrician and gynecologist, medical director of the Center for Advanced Reproductive Medicine at Cabell Huntington Hospital and associate professor at the Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine.
Submitted photo
Dr. William Burns is a Marshall Health obstetrician and gynecologist, medical director of the Center for Advanced Reproductive Medicine at Cabell Huntington Hospital and associate professor at the Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine. He says being a smaller hospital allows more personal attention to each patient. He also credits the success with incremental improvements that don’t get recognized as a revolutionary breakthrough but that matter in terms of outcome.
“It’s not just medical science and hormonal science, but engineering science and laboratory science in terms of the wonderful equipment that’s needed in an IVF laboratory to be able to do this,” he said.
One of the advances in IVF treatment is in the technology of freezing embryos, which improved significantly in recent years thanks to a process known as vitrification. Two decades ago, he said, about a third of frozen embryos did not survive the thawing process, but that is rarely the case today.
A manipulator in the IVF lab at Cabell Huntington Hospital’s Center for Advanced Reproductive Medicine.
CABELL HUNTINGTON HOSPITAL | Courtesy
Another advance involves a specific piece of equipment called a micromanipulator. It’s used to inject sperm into eggs in cases where sperm injection is needed.
There has been improvement in the electronics of incubators and IVF lab equipment and ultrasound machines, Burns said.
“You can’t do well with it unless you have just a very good laboratory that is functioning at a very high level.”
After three rounds of in vitro fertilization treatment, Hannah Little is due to deliver her second child, a daughter, on March 16.
HANNAH LITTLE | Courtesy photo
Hannah Little got pregnant easily with her first child and never imagined she and her husband would struggle to conceive a second time.
“We thought pretty much the same would happen, but it obviously didn’t. We actually went through a couple of rounds of fertility meds with my women’s health doctor before pursuing the help of [Dr. Burns],” she said.
“The treatment process is mentally and physically just so hard. You have a lot of injections and a lot of ultrasounds with Dr. Burns to make sure that your body is responding appropriately to the medications,” she said.
She said her experience at Cabell Huntington Hospital was comforting in the midst of so much anxiety.
“We just never, ever dreamed that we would be having to go through IVF. I remember me and my husband looking at each other and being like, ‘Are we really doing this?’” she said.
Ultimately, after three rounds of IVF, they got the news they had been hoping for.
I was kind of at my wit’s end when I saw that pregnancy test that was positive. But I think whenever you go through IVF and you go through so many rounds there’s a lot of fear.”
“And then I guess after those first couple of weeks, I kind of just knew. I had this peace, this calmness that came over me, and I was like, ‘This baby is going to make it here.”
She is due to deliver her baby on March 16. Her older daughter, now 5, is beyond excited to welcome the little sister she’s been waiting on.
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