It takes a village to ensure safe care. The Mary Washington Healthcare staff are experienced, with the majority of team members bringing more than 15 years of experience to their patients.

Photo caption: Women’s and Children’s Care Center (WCCC) leadership 

From left, back row: Nancy Young, MWH NICU Nurse Manager; Katie Pifer, SH LDRP Nurse Manager; Ann Weed, Director of WCCC; Wendy Brown, Assistant Nurse Manager, MWH NICU; RiDonna Walker, Pediatrics and Mother Baby Nurse Manager. 

From left, front row: Terri Lamprinakos, Labor & Delivery Nurse Manager; Joffa Grant, Assistant Nurse Manager, SH LDRP; and Jennifer Lanham, Assistant Nurse Manager, SH LDRP.

When families first walk through the doors of Mary Washington or Stafford Hospital to welcome a new baby, one of the most significant moments in their lives, there’s a dedicated team working hard behind the scenes to ensure that they immediately feel at home.

For Dr. Jordan Kuhn, Chief of OB-GYN at Mary Washington Hospital, that first impression is critical. “When mothers and families walk in, we want them to feel welcomed. We want them to walk into an inviting environment and to feel supported in a place where they’re comfortable giving birth to their child,” he said.

Ann Weed, Director of Mary Washington Healthcare’s Women’s and Children’s
Care Center, added, “We want them to be confident in their healthcare team.” 

While many families experience anxiety around childbirth, RiDonna Walker, Nurse Manager for Pediatrics and Mother and Baby at Mary Washington Hospital, described how feeling welcome and having a dedicated, caring team can make a big difference. “We often hear families say that they were nervous coming in, but when you start talking with them and they feel that they’re in great hands, you can see their shoulders drop and relax, and that’s what we want, that sense of ease and that calming feeling to resonate with every patient.”

For the Mary Washington Healthcare team, communication and connection are at the heart of helping women to feel comfortable. “We try to find some common ground and identify with them because that personal connection is really important,” said Terri Lamprinakos, Nurse Manager for Labor & Delivery at Mary Washington Hospital.

Katie Pifer, Nurse Manager of Labor, Delivery, Postpartum, and Recovery Unit at Stafford Hospital, emphasized the importance of being proactive when it comes to assisting patients. “We try and work really hard to make sure we are communicating well and anticipating their needs because that alleviates their anxiety,” she said.

At Mary Washington Healthcare, every patient has a story, and it matters. Through the “My Story” initiative, patients and families can share what’s important to them, helping the team connect on a personal level and provide care rooted in understanding, dignity, and compassion. 

Walker explained, “It encourages them to share a couple of things about themselves and their family so we can work on building that relationship because we want every family to know that they matter.” A patient’s My Story is communicated with the entire healthcare team, from labor and delivery to postpartum to NICU and pediatrics, and when possible, the team may even match nurses with patients where there’s common ground or interests.

Dr. Kuhn reiterated the importance of communication, not just between the hospital staff and family but across the healthcare team, whether it’s with My Story or during a staff handoff. He said, “We make sure that we’re on the same page in terms of what the plan is for the patient and what is going on with the patient. If something changes, we make sure that everyone involved in their care is updated immediately.”

And Lamprinakos noted that patients are active participants in the handoff process. “If we’re ever changing hands from nurse to nurse or physician to physician, we do it in the room with the patient so that they can say goodbye to the person leaving and hello to the person coming on. And as we’re going over the history and birth plan and the wants and needs of the family, they can interrupt and tell us if we left something out or if they’ve changed their mind or if there’s something else that they want,” she said.

For the Mary Washington Healthcare team, communication and connection are at the heart of helping women to feel comfortable. Weed added that even simple tools, like in-room communication boards, ensure that mothers and their families stay informed.

On the mind of every expecting mother, and even more important than comfort and communication is, of course, safety. “The teams regularly participate in simulation and emergency drills so that our responses are immediate and coordinated, making sure that people are able to maintain a calm and controlled environment,” said Dr. Kuhn.

Weed highlighted the collaborative nature of emergency preparedness, adding, “We also train in conjunction with other parts of the hospital, like the blood bank and interventional radiology. Last fall, we did a postpartum hemorrhage call-to-action day, where we provided education and training to everyone in the hospital who might touch a postpartum patient.”

It takes a village to ensure safe care. The Mary Washington Healthcare staff are experienced, with the majority of team members bringing more than 15 years of experience to their patients. 

Also important is balancing medical expertise with each mother’s individual birth plan. Dr. Kuhn approaches birth plans with both respect and realism. “My goal is to provide expert guidance and ensure safety. I always like to listen carefully to a mother’s preferences and their goals.” He noted that, oftentimes, a mother’s birth plan includes practices, such as delayed cord clamping and skin-to-skin contact, that are already a part of the hospital’s standards.

Dr. Kuhn also prepares families for the unexpected, so that if complications do arise and the team needs to deviate from the mother’s birth plan, she knows what to expect and is included in that conversation.

In addition to listening to a patient’s individual preferences and needs during labor and delivery, the Mary Washington Healthcare team focuses on ensuring that each mother and her supporting family members leave the hospital feeling confident.

“We focus on the whole picture postpartum,” said Walker. “We assess their home life, learn what resources and support they have at home, and ensure that all patients go home with the tips, tricks, and educational resources they need.”

This education extends to recovery, pain management, breastfeeding support, and mental health and well-being, and support doesn’t end at discharge. Take-home resources, follow-up calls from nurses, and a new digital discharge project, which will offer digital resources for parents to use after returning home, are some of the ways that the Mary Washington Healthcare team stays connected with families. “We don’t want them to feel like they just left the hospital and that’s it,” Walker said. “We’re still here.”

For this team, the work that they do is deeply personal. Dr. Kuhn reflected, “It’s a privilege to be part of such a meaningful moment in everyone’s lives. It never stops being special.”

Ultimately, when a family looks back on their birth years later, the staff at Mary Washington Healthcare hope that they will remember the care and compassion that the team had for them, that they felt safe and welcome, and that they knew they were in good hands.