The Boven Birth Center is honored to share our new parents' success stories. We hope these stories encourage you to envision your own Boven birth experience.
A Triple(t) Play!
Holland Hospital’s Boven Birth Center closed out 2011 with a joyful milestone: our first triplets in 50 years!
Three healthy babies were born on December 30 to Holland residents Tiffany and Curtis Avison. Two girls and a boy were delivered by Cesarean section beginning with Jaxton Barnes at 1:03 p.m., weighing in at 4 pounds, 2 ounces. He was followed by two sisters: Hadley Drew and Berkley Reese, both 4 pounds, 7 ounces.
All three were in excellent health, reports Tiffany Avison, 27, who was awake for the births. “They came out screaming, which is what [the doctors and nurses] wanted.”
As each infant was delivered and gave a healthy cry, Joyce VanHoff, RN, clinical coordinator for the Boven Birth Center, gave the thumbs-up to the pediatric team standing by in the Special Care Nursery. They were ready with three isolettes, three monitors, three color-coded hats ... three of everything! The hospital’s pediatricians and nursery staff had mapped out every detail in advance, including checklists and call schedules.
“We called it the ‘triple play’,” VanHoff said. “It went amazingly well.”
Special Care Nursery
The birth center’s Special Care Nursery is equipped with state-of-the-art neonatal equipment and staffed with pediatric hospitalists and specially trained nurses for newborns who need a higher level of support before going home. That includes multiple births, infants with feeding problems, and premature births as early as 32 weeks.
Although about 20 sets of twins are born at Holland Hospital each year, triplets are rare because they have a greater chance of very early preterm birth, often necessitating a newborn intensive care unit, says Women and Children’s Services Director Kathy Nania. Tiffany’s obstetrician, Mary Gootjes, MD, of OB/GYN Associates of Holland, advised that Tiffany carry the triplets for at least 33 weeks in order to deliver at Holland Hospital. She went into labor at 33 weeks and 4 days.
“We made it with four days [to spare],” Tiffany said. “We had a countdown going.”
The couple, both Holland natives, had toured other hospitals but said they had their hearts set on Holland Hospital’s Boven Birth Center, where their 2½-year-old daughter Charley was born. “We wanted the personal touch that we got here,” said Tiffany.
Curtis Aveson, the trio’s dad, agreed. “Having them at Holland Hospital was a major factor for us. We appreciate Holland more than any other city, so we knew we wanted them here, where we live.”
The Avisons were able to hold the babies right away, and Tiffany spent as much time as she could with them in the Special Care Nursery during her four-day hospital stay and after.
“Our pediatric hospitalist team (three pediatricians and a neonatal nurse practitioner) closely monitored the newborns to ensure that they learned to feed normally and began to gain weight,” explained David Chamness, MD, Medical Director of Holland Hospital’s Pediatric Hospitalist Program. “All three were home within 16 days after their birth.”
“We are extremely happy,” Curtis says of the whole experience. “The care we received here was not something we would have received anywhere else.”