What to Expect
Whether you’re a first-time parent or have already little ones running around, we’re here to help you every step of the way as you bring new life into the world.
At Tallahassee Memorial, our expert team of doctors, midwives, nurses, specialists and educators will provide you the highest level of care while helping make your birth experience as positive as possible.
Jump to a Section
- Tour Our Women's Pavilion
- Selecting a Provider
- Selecting a Provider for Baby
- Preparing for Your Birth
- When to Use the Obstetric Emergency Room
- What to Expect in the Women’s Pavilion
- Baby-Friendly Practices You’ll Experience
- Going Home
Tour Our Women’s Pavilion
Vea el Tour Virtual de Nuestro Women's Pavilion en Español aqui.
Join us on a tour of our Alexander D. Brickler, MD Women’s Pavilion as we show you our facilities, review our processes and help you feel prepared for your delivery. As our region’s only accredited Baby-Friendly Hospital, our goal is to give you and your little one the best possible start.
In-person tours are held weekly on Thursday at 6 pm with spots for seven moms and their support person.
Selecting a Provider
For Mom
Pregnant women should see their doctor or midwife at least once a month for the first 36 weeks of pregnancy, and then weekly until delivery. This relationship is important, so look for someone who shares your philosophy about pregnancy and childbirth. Be sure your doctor or midwife has the specific training, interests and qualifications to meet your needs.
Each individual caregiver’s office staff can answer specific questions about hours of operation, location and insurance accepted. To select a medical provider, please use our Find a Doctor tool and list of Certified Nurse Midwives on medical staff with Tallahassee Memorial.
For Baby
Before your baby is born, choose a pediatrician, pediatric nurse practitioner or a family practice provider for your child. This provider may visit you and your baby in the hospital for a first health checkup or you may see him or her after you are released from the hospital.
When choosing a healthcare provider for your baby, you will want to consider whether he or she accepts your insurance, takes new patients and whether the doctor’s office has hours, policies and procedures that are in line with your needs.
To help you select the best care provider for your family, we encourage you to ask the following questions:
- Do you see newborns in the hospital or at the first office visit?
- How does the practice handle children who are sick? What about after hours?
- What hospitals are you affiliated with?
- How long have you been practicing?
- Do you have any sub-specialties?
- To become a patient, what paperwork is needed before the baby is born?
Preparing for Your Birth
Pre-Register at TMH
We recommend completing our pre-registration form to lock in TMH as your chosen hospital for delivery. Pre-registering to have your baby at TMH now will speed up the process of being admitted once you are in labor or if you need to visit the Obstetric Emergency Room for a medical concern during your pregnancy.
Creating a Birth Plan
Make sure to communicate your birth goals with your care providers! You can use this checklist to guide your discussion with your provider before your delivery. Note your preferences and give copies to your caregivers when you arrive at the Women’s Pavilion.
Our biggest piece of advice is to be flexible with your plan. How and when your baby arrive may change your plans, but we'll make every effort to help you have the birth experience you want!
Pregnancy and Parenting Classes
We offer a variety of classes to help you and your family prepare for your baby’s arrival, including:
Picking Up Your Breast Pump
Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare is the exclusive provider of breast pumps for Capital Health Plan members. If you’re delivering at TMH, you can receive your pump at the time of your delivery.
If you’re delivering elsewhere, you can pick up your pump at La Belle Breastfeeding Boutique inside the La Belle Breastfeeding Boutique no earlier than one month before your due date.
When to Use the Obstetric Emergency Room
If you experience a medical complication when you are at least 14 weeks pregnant or more, we encourage you to visit the Women’s Pavilion for care. Our Obstetric Emergency Room is specially designed to care for pregnant women with 8 private rooms and a team of experienced nurses. In the Obstetric Emergency Room, visitors are limited to 1 support person per patient.
What to Expect in the Women’s Pavilion
Coming to the Women’s Pavilion
Our Alexander D. Brickler, MD Women’s Pavilion is located on TMH’s Main Campus at 1300 Miccosukee Road.
When you arrive at TMH, you’ll enter the P5 parking garage on Medical Drive and follow signs for the Women’s Pavilion. In front of the Women’s Pavilion main entrance, you will see three designated “Mother in Labor” parking spots. Your support person may park here for up to thirty minutes, but will need to move their vehicle to a permanent spot after you get checked in.
Checking In
When you first enter the Women’s Pavilion, you’ll see the security desk. All support people, friends and family who visit must check in with security and show a valid ID to get a visitor badge.
Then, you’ll take the elevator to the second floor and enter our main lobby. When you arrive for delivery or to be seen for a medical concern in the Obstetric Emergency Room, you will check in here. Please make sure to have your ID and insurance card available.
Completing your pre-admission paperwork as early as possible in your pregnancy will ensure that your records are ready when it is time to have your baby. Download this form.
Labor & Delivery
Most moms will start in the Obstetric Emergency Room, where you’ll receive your initial assessment. Our Obstetric Emergency Room team, staffed by physicians, certified nurse midwives and nurses, will evaluate you to see if you are in active labor. If you are not, you may be asked to walk around the lobby for a while until the baby is ready.
You’ll be allowed one support person in the Obstetric Emergency Room and the time you spend here will vary, depending on how long it takes to determine if admission is necessary and to answer your questions.
Before Your Delivery
After your assessment, you may be admitted to one of two rooms, depending on your condition – Antenatal or Labor & Delivery. Moms who do not yet require admission may be sent home with discharge instructions.
Our Antenatal Care Unit is for women who require bedrest or extra care before they are ready to deliver. Each of these rooms has their own private bathroom, mini-fridge, TV and couch that can convert into a bed for your support person.
Labor & Delivery Unit
Now, you’re in labor! Once in a Labor & Delivery room, you’ll meet your care team – a primary nurse, attending provider and a resident.
We offer several non-pharmacological options to help you manage pain, including a squat bar, birthing ball and a tub for laboring. For women interested in medicine to manage pain, we offer IV pain medication and epidural. Please discuss your options with your provider prior to your delivery.
The Labor & Delivery room also has a private bathroom, TV, rocking chair and sleeper sofa for your support person.
There is no official limit to the number of visitors you may have while in active labor, but we do not recommend any more than four. There may also come a time when your care team needs to clear the room for safety reasons.
Once baby is born, we make every attempt to immediately initiate skin-to-skin and continue until the first breastfeeding is complete. We usually recommend your visitors temporarily leave at this time, so you and baby can focus on bonding and feeding.
Mom will recover is the Labor & Delivery room for 2 to 3 hours before going to the Family Care Unit, where you’ll spend the rest of your stay. This timing may be adjusted as needed.
If a cesarean (c-section) is needed, we have three high-risk Labor & Delivery ORs, where mom can be accompanied by one support person. Once baby is born, we still try to initiate skin-to-skin with nurse assistance.
If Your Baby Needs the NICU
If for any reason your baby needs critical care, you’re in the right place. We are home to the region’s only neonatal intensive care unit and our NICU team is just down the hall. There is a radiant warmer in the room where the NICU team can provide simple interventions like giving your baby extra oxygen, or even resuscitate baby if needed. If your baby needs to spend time in the NICU, you’ll be able to visit once you finish your initial recovery.
Postpartum Family Care Unit
The Family Care Unit is where you’ll rest, recover and get to know your little one before going home. Moms who’ve had vaginal births normally spend two days here and moms who’ve had c-sections spend two to three days here.
This room also has a private bathroom, TV, chair and sleeper sofa for your support person.
As part of our rooming in practice, baby stays with mom at all times, excluding for a few medical procedures, like circumcisions or X-rays.
When you get to this room, baby will also receive a head-to-toe assessment and admission medications and vaccines recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
While you are recovering, you’ll have a lot of people checking in on you and baby, including:
- Your nursing team, who will discuss the plan of care, assist with feeding and teach you how to care for your new little one, including bathing, safe sleep and more
- A pediatric hospitalist who will check in on baby once a day
- Patient care assistants who will take your vitals, help you shower after a c-section and weigh baby
- A hearing technician who will complete baby’s hearing screening
- Birth records
- Dietary
- Housekeeping
- Our on-site photographer, Mom365
- Lactation consultants are also available if you need extra help with feeding
With so many people coming in and out to make sure your needs are met, we recommend you work with your nurse to come up with a plan for visitation to ensure you’re able to get the rest you need.
La Belle Breastfeeding Boutique
Located in the Family Care Unit of the Alexander D. Brickler, MD Women's Pavilion, La Belle Breastfeeding Boutique is your one stop shop for breastfeeding-related items including:
- Breast Milk Storage
- Breast Pumps, Attachments & Accessories
- Herbal Supplements & Essential Oils
- Nipple & Breast Care Products
- Nursing & Pumping Bras Fitted by a Certified Bra Fitter
- Pregnancy & Postpartum Belly Bands
- Pregnancy & Postpartum Body Care Products
- Specialty Feeding Supplies
Because hours vary, please call ahead before visiting the boutique at 850-431-4920.
Mom365 Newborn Photography
The day your baby is born is a moment to hold on to forever. Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare knows that capturing your little bundle of joy with artistic, newborn photography is the most inspiring way to document this fleeting time for life.
We bring professional photographers from Mom365 to your room to capture these early moments and special firsts before you leave and begin your life at home with your baby. Newborn portraits that savor the sweetness of your baby’s first yawn, those tiny fingers and toes, and the quiet moments between baby and you. Your mini lifestyle photoshoot, completed in the privacy of your own room, is complimentary without any obligation.
Your little star’s portraits are available for you to see immediately in a touching slideshow set to music. Mom365 Newborn Photography offers a wide variety of print and digital photo products available to you within hours of your baby’s portrait session. Along with professional portraits and gifts, every mom who has their baby’s portrait taken will receive a free digital portrait keepsake as a special gift from Mom365 and Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare.
In addition, password-protected online viewing allows you to see and share your baby’s cherished photos with friends and family anywhere. Only you can choose the guests who can view and celebrate this wonderful memory with you.
Your baby’s beautiful images from Mom365 are just a click away! Access your private online announcement to share with friends and family.
Women's Pavilion Gift Shop
Visit the Women’s Pavilion Gift Shop on the third floor for mom and baby gifts, fresh coffee, food, drinks and snacks. Don’t forget to shop for that perfect going-home outfit for your new bundle of joy!
Hours:
Monday - Friday, 9 - 5 pm
Weekend hours may vary
Call ahead at 850-431-0294
Baby-Friendly Practices You’ll Experience
When you visit the Women’s Pavilion, you will experience the following Baby-Friendly standards and evidence-based practices geared to help promote bonding between mom and baby.
Skin-to-skin
Skin-to-skin contact, also known as “kangaroo care,” benefits premature and full-term babies. Following delivery, your baby will be placed naked onto your (or your partner’s if you’re unavailable) chest and covered with a warm blanket. Studies show that babies placed skin-to skin on either mom or another parent following birth have better weight gain, less stress and crying, enhanced bonding, improved sleep, improved brain development and greater ease with breastfeeding. If your baby needs to go to the NICU, kangaroo care may be delayed until your baby is stable, for baby’s safety. Your nurses will work with you to develop a plan to safely practice skin-to-skin.
Delayed Bath
The time immediately following birth is precious for you and your baby. At Tallahassee Memorial, we delay newborns’ baths eight to twenty-four hours postpartum. This delay limits the stress on baby, therefore increasing breastfeeding rates. Now delayed, the first bath becomes a teachable moment for your family.
Rooming In / Rest and Recovery
You and baby will have a 24-hour period focused on bonding, relaxation and recovery immediately following birth. This time is invaluable, so we want you to enjoy it. Research shows mothers and babies rest better when in the same room, also known as rooming in. Rooming in will help you learn how to care for your baby, recognize baby’s feeding cues and feed baby on demand. Rooming in also allows you to get to know each other better, ultimately setting your family up for an easier transition home.
Lactation Support
All registered nurses who work in the Women’s Pavilion and Children’s Center have extensive education and training in breastfeeding. Certified Lactation Counselors and International Board-Certified Lactation Consultants are also available to work with you and your nursing staff if you need additional assistance, both in the hospital and after you go home. This surrounds mother and baby with the utmost support.
We also invite you to join our free Breastfeeding Support Group, where you can meet other breastfeeding moms and receive continued lactation assistance and support.
Going Home
Car Seats
Before you’re discharged and free to go home with your new little one, you must have your car seat installed. Florida law requires that all infants be properly restrained and transported in a federally-approved car seat appropriate for the child’s age, height and weight.
You will need to have the base of your car seat installed before you are ready for discharge from the hospital. You can bring the actual car seat up to your room for a final fitting of your infant. We ask that you become familiar with your car seat before discharge. We recommend you have it professionally inspected before your delivery, as our team is unable to assist with installation or inspection.
Notify Your Health Insurance Company
Did you know that you will need to notify your health insurance company that your little one has arrived? Most insurance companies require newborns to be added within 30 days after birth. Learn more.
Infant Safe Sleep
Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare (TMH) is the Big Bend region’s first facility recognized by the National Safe Sleep Hospital Certification Program as a National Certified Gold Safe Sleep Champion – the highest level of infant safe sleep certification.
Accidental sleep-related death (SDR) claims the lives of around 3,500 infants in the United States every year. To support local families and prevent the unfathomable loss of a child, TMH has earned this designation by advocating for and implementing best practices and education on infant safe sleep.
Before you’re discharged, your care team will educate you on the essential steps to infant safe sleep. Babies should sleep alone on their backs in a crib. All soft bedding, bumpers and toys should be removed.
In addition, all families are provided with a Halo® SleepSack® at the time of their baby’s discharge. The Halo® SleepSack® wearable blanket replaces loose blankets in the crib that can cover your baby’s face and interfere with breathing. In addition to sleeping safer, it helps babies sleep better, too. It’s a warm cuddly blanket they can’t kick off, ensuring that your baby sleeps soundly throughout the night.
