Why Erlanger East is the best place to have a baby

Caroline Thatcher Petsch of Chattanooga has some things to say about the many ways Erlanger East Hospital helped her family have a terrific birthing experience as they welcomed Baby Evelyn into the world. Watch the video below to see what this new mother has to say.

I’m Caroline and this is Evelyn, and she’s ten weeks old, and I had her at Erlanger East. I had toured the facilities — my doctor wanted me to deliver there — and it was so comfortable, it was clean. I love the lighting! The delivery rooms were so big, so it just seemed really comfortable and clean and quiet. And it was a baby-friendly hospital.

The nurses were extremely helpful the entire time. They told me there was something called “rooming in,” so the baby was never taken from the room except for when she had to have shots, and you know, if they had to take her for something like that, but most of the time she was with me. So I felt like we had a lot of chance to bond.

We had a lactation consultant who came periodically to check on me and to check on Evey and make sure that she was breastfeeding well. A lot of information was given to me. I even had a nurse who had just gotten off shift right when I had the baby, so she wasn’t supposed to be in there, but she waited around just so she could meet her, and everyone was just so nice and so helpful.

I was actually very shocked when they didn’t have a nursery where they took the babies, and I was really glad about it, because I didn’t want them to take her away from me when I had her and I know that most hospitals do that, so it was really nice to have the “rooming in” and to have the lactation consultants. It was very comfortable for me.

One great thing about East is they had calming hours so no one could visit during those hours. It was really nice because so many people would try to visit you, which is great, but sometimes you just need that time to rest and be with your baby and they really helped with that, with having the calming hours.

Another thing that my husband and I really thought was wonderful about East was the convenience of the location. We live in St. Elmo and it was about a 15 minute drive. Obviously when you’re going into labor it’s sometimes stressful, so getting there quickly and finding parking easily was very helpful for us.

I would highly recommend Erlanger East. I would say it’s the perfect hospital for delivering a baby.

Are you expecting a baby? There’s a reason Erlanger Health System has been voted Best Place to Have a Baby for the 10th year in a row. Get started on your path to motherhood in the best way possible at Chattanooga’s only designated Baby-Friendly hospital and meet with a doctor today. Don’t have a doctor? Find one here.