A nurse midwife at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) Medical Center recently delivered her 1,000th baby.
“When I came here in 1999,” said Hope Renn, CNM, MSN, “I’d only caught 159 babies. That means most of the 1,000 were delivered right here at UCSD.”
Renn helped Ana Torres deliver Jesus Alexis Torres at the UCSD Birth Center at the UCSD Medical Center-Hillcrest after a very short
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Hope Renn, CNM, MSN, (right) with her 1000th
baby, Jesus Alexis, and his mother Ana Torres
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labor. The baby is the first boy for the mother and her husband Jesus Torres, who also have three girls. Torres received her prenatal care at the Comprehensive Health Center.
Midwives provide care in pregnancy, birth, and postpartum care to families. They offer the full scope of family-centered maternity care services and specialize in caring for women and their infants who are at low-risk of complications. The UCSD Nurse Midwifery Program emphasizes education and involvement of the patient in her own care.
Patients can choose to deliver their babies in the home-like atmosphere of the UCSD Birth Center or in the conventional delivery area of the hospital.
“I think the midwife program is a wonderful option for low risk women giving birth in San Diego,” said Linda Levy, RN, MSN, Director of Women and Infant Services. “It gives women a great deal of control over their birthing experiences.”
Midwives at UCSD Medical Center work with physicians in the center’s Department of Reproductive Medicine, as well as specialists in the Department of Neonatology. The UCSD Nurse Midwifery Program is certified by the American College of Nurse-Midwives. All UCSD midwives are registered nurses with the advanced degree of Certified Nurse Midwife (CNM).
Renn became a midwife in 1997 and began working at UCSD Medical Center in 1999. She speaks Spanish and most of her patients are Spanish-speaking, she said.
“I was first exposed to midwifery while working in a Vietnamese refugee camp in the Philippines,” Renn said, “and from the first birth I witnessed, I became a birth junkie. I can’t imagine doing anything else with my life. I am so honored to be able to walk with women and their families on their journey through pregnancy, labor, birth, and into parenthood.”
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Media Contact: Debra Kain, 619-543-6163, ddkain@ucsd.edu