Hospital for Women by Women to Open Soon

HOUSTON - In this economy, when people compete for your business the consumer wins. Now there's good news when it comes to having babies right here in Houston.

Texas Children's Hospital is close to opening its new, 15-story, $525 million facility called the Pavilion for Women. High risk births are on the rise, and this facility aims to be the nation's leader in treating both mom and baby.

Only outpatient services will be available starting November 7th.

The Pavilion for Women will start delivering babies in spring, 2012.

The facility isn't just for women, it's built by them. Women are leading the way on the design and operations. They're also including patient feedback--everything from paint color and artwork to a state of the art conference center that can virtually assemble experts from around the world.

There's a two-story sky bridge that will be used to rush the tiniest babies across the street to Texas Children's highest level Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

The labor and delivery rooms are so spacious there's even room for a table to have a celebratory dinner.

"One of the women said, 'Finally a woman designed the bathroom,'" said Cris Daskevich, Senior Vice President of Texas Children's Hospital.

The hospital plans to deliver 5,000 babies a year, about a quarter of which will be high risk.

"It absolutely makes complete sense if we are going to change neonatal outcomes then we have to take care of moms," said Daskevich.

Often when babies are born with problems the family isn't allowed to stay in the same room together.

Just ask leading architect and mom, Diane Osan, whose first baby needed to go to the NICU.

"They literally after just a few minutes of, 'Hi, here's your baby,' they whisked her away off to the NICU," said Osan.

She made sure the Pavilion for Women offers a new concept for low level NICUs--a private room rather than an open ward filled with babies.

"In a private room you still have the technology to make sure you're taking care of baby, and you're allowing the family to be there with the baby," said Osan.

Down the street Dr. Sean Blackwell specializes in high risk births at another hospital, Children's Memorial Hermann.

He's quick to point out it's a facility that's been caring for moms and babies for nearly a hundred years.

"Been there, done that. This is what we do every single day," said Dr. Blackwell.

He says the Pavilion for Women will offer a healthy dose of competition.

"I feel extraordinarily confident that because we're giving the best care with all our resources, we'll always be competitive and people will have a choice," said Dr. Blackwell.