Nearly one third of babies born in Texas were to mothers who received little or no prenatal care. Yet receiving prenatal care early during pregnancy gives babies the best chance for a healthy start in life.

In 2014, People’s expanded its prenatal care team and facilities to Park St. David’s within the St. David’s Medical Center Complex to help meet the growing demand for obstetric services of Central Texans. The expansion should allow the clinic to serve an additional 1,000 patients a year.

The clinic’s prenatal/obstetrics program offers an array of services including robust medical assessments, health education, fetal monitoring, laboratory tests, vitamins, medications, and social work services. The clinic’s program provides prenatal patients with opportunities to learn more about caring for their newborn and breastfeeding and offers a prenatal clinic (the Tandem Program) dedicated to meeting the special needs of pregnant teens, including case management, health education, and guidance.

People’s encourages new mothers to use the clinic as their medical home beyond their pregnancy and to make our pediatric department the medical home for their infants. High-quality prenatal care provides the best foundation of preventive care for life-long health that medicine can provide. Proper prenatal care can save the community tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars per premature baby by reducing the need for intensive care for infants born with health problems that could be mitigated with prenatal care.