Delivering Your Baby at Hi-Desert Medical Center

At Hi-Desert Medical Center, we aim to create a healthy, safe, and enjoyable birthing experience. With a tight-knit team located in beautiful Joshua Tree, California, we offer our community and visiting mothers alike an exceptional birthing experience. Whether you’d prefer a natural, holistic birth with your personal doula present, or you’d rather sit back and let your doctor take the lead, we accommodate birthing plans ranging from the holistic to the conventional. Whatever your preference, we are here to make your birth exceptional and safe.

Why Choose Us?

Doula-Friendly Delivery

Doulas are becoming more and more popular as members of the birth team. Expectant moms see the value in hiring a “birth coach” who can help them through many aspects of the labor and delivery process—from their home to the delivery room and then back again. Doulas can help provide mental support, physical coaching, and even massage during key parts of the labor process. At Hi-Desert Medical Center, we welcome doulas as part of the birth team. Our nurses have great respect for the support that doulas provide and good working relationships with local doulas in our area. That’s why even in the time of COVID-19, we welcome expectant moms to bring both a family member/support person as well as their doula.

If you would like your doula to be present during your birth, your doula’s credentials must be reviewed and accepted by the hospital prior to the delivery date. To submit your doula’s credentials for review, please email [email protected].

The Joshua Tree Experience

Nestled against the scenic backdrop of Joshua Tree National Park, Hi-Desert Medical Center is ready to be your home away from home during the delivery of your baby. Our talented team is made up of nurses born and raised right here in the high desert. We understand that each mom-to-be has a different vision for how to give birth and we are committed to help you reach this goal. We do that by:

• Honoring your birth plan
• Supporting natural birth
• Providing Medically-induced birth if requested
• Welcoming your Doula
• Offering Aromatherapy and music
• Honoring personal rituals
• Encouraging the use of birthing balls/peanuts, walking around, movement
• Keeping the placenta for you to take home (please ask your nurse about this)

We also offer a private, personalized experience:

• Private rooms throughout your stay
• Private bathrooms with shower and Jacuzzi tubs
• Additional bed in each room to ensure the comfort of your support person
• Special meal for mother and support person after birth
• TVs and DVD players in each room, with the option to bring along your personal gaming console, or to check out movies from the nursing station
• Bose sound system to listen to music, the radio, or plug in your electronic device to stream your favorite meditation music or podcast

Golden Hour Skin-to-Skin Support

At Hi-Desert, we know the importance of immediately bonding with your baby and how the golden hour right after birth is the best time to do this. This entails:

• Delayed cord clamping
• Skin-to-skin contact for at least one hour
• Early initiation of breastfeeding
• Delaying non-urgent tasks such as weighing, measuring, and bathing

Skin-to-skin contact for the first hour immediately after birth has shown:

• Increased bonding between mother and baby
• Encourages the uterus to contract and stop bleeding
• Breastfeeding within first hour improves infant health
• Mothers who engage in golden hour skin-to-skin are more likely to breastfeed longer

We do not separate mother and baby after birth. Your newborn will sleep in a bed alongside you. If during routine testing the baby must leave the room, we invite the mother and/or support person to come along.

During Delivery and Your Stay at Hi-Desert Medical Center

COVID-19 Information: Click here to read about how we are keeping you and your baby safe in the time of COVID-19. Or watch this video to hear directly from one of our patients about the experience of delivering during COVID-19.

LDR Rooms: Our four-bed unit offers spacious, private rooms to maximize comfort for mom and baby. We also have a specialized isolation room for COVID-positive deliveries, COVID-positive patients are in a separate location and have separate staff to maximize safety.

Breastfeeding and Lactation: In our commitment to ensuring you and your baby bond, we educate new mothers on the importance of breastfeeding and take all necessary steps to ensure successful breastfeeding has occurred prior to discharge from the hospital. Your nurse will:

• Observe feedings
• Assist with latch and position
• Educate on milk production, baby behavior, pumping and adjusting to newborn life
• Suggestions on how to handle any physical discomforts while breastfeeding
• Help with feeding multiples
• Answer any questions or concerns you may have

Skilled Team: We hope your baby is born healthy, however this is not always the case. In the event of an emergency, our team of skilled nurses will care for ill or premature newborns and stabilize them before transferring them to a higher level of care facility. Our sister hospital, Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs, has a Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) with a 24/7 on-call NICU Flight Transport Team, only minutes away by helicopter.

To learn more about our NICU, click here.