Caribou Medical Center hosts birth clinic!

I am so excited to host this year’s first (hopefully annual) baby expo, on Wednesday January 22! When I first moved to Soda Springs 4 years ago, my husband and I were considering the possibility of adding another baby to our family. In speaking with new friends that I’d met around town, I heard the same thing over and over... “Don’t have your baby at our hospital. Definitely go to Pocatello.”

I would ask why, and never really got a satisfying answer. There was a lot of mumbling about maybe the doctors weren’t the best here, or the hospital was nicer elsewhere, or the hospital in town didn’t have a NICU. Lots of people had lots of negative things to say about the hospital, but not a lot of solid evidence to back of their words. I just decided to blindly trust what others were saying. After all, they were my new friends and so why wouldn’t I?

Fast forward to today. I didn’t end up having that fourth baby, but instead got my dream job of Director of Marketing... And it just happens to be at that same hospital that I’d heard so many negative things about when I first moved here. Since working at the hospital, I have decided that all those rumors from when I first moved here are totally wrong.

Perhaps in the past people had negative experiences at Caribou Memorial Hospital, and those experiences are valid and justified, and I’d never discount if someone went through something terrible within the walls of the hospital. But I can testify that today, within the walls of Caribou Medical Center, BIG changes have been happening. There is a new executive team, and new leadership teams, that are working together and working hard to change the culture and the level of patient care. We want people to come to our hospital and leave happier and healthier than they’ve ever been. We want to be the place people come first when they need caregivers; we want them to trust us. And we are doing everything we can to earn that trust.

We want people — especially women who are pregnant or planning to be pregnant — to give us a chance before going to Portneuf or Bear Lake or Logan for their care. We have an incredible team of women’s healthcare providers and nurses who will be with those women from the moment they get that positive pregnancy test (or before) all the way through delivery in a way that just does not happen at a bigger hospital. Bigger does not always equal better. If you go to Portneuf to give birth, you will be just another number in their system. You may be 1 of 5 or 6 or even more women on the floor the day you give birth, and your level of care will reflect that. At CMC, you will likely be the only one giving birth on any specific day, and you will get 3 on 1 or 4 on 1 care. You will have a team of doctors and nurses at your disposal, making sure everything goes smoothly, that you are comfortable and taken care of. 

If the level of care from a team that is qualified and personal doesn’t sell you, let our birthing center. Our birthing center is less than 10 years old and it is beautiful! I have lived in 5 different states and been to 5 different hospitals in the course of my pregnant/birthing years, and the birthing center at our little hospital is the nicest one I’ve seen! It is stunning, with incredible views.

The purpose of the Baby Expo is to put the community’s mind at ease about what their pre- and post-natal experience at CMC will be like, and to convince them that whatever negative thing they may have heard about us in the past is no longer accurate. We want to let the community meet our doctors in a casual, friendly setting; we want community members to get to know them on a personal level and ask any questions they might have about what delivering here would be like. We want to quell any concerns they have. Because we know firsthand that having a baby can be overwhelming and scary, and we want anyone experiencing that to trust us and know that we are here for them! We want the community to see our hospital, to see our birthing suites, to see what it would be like to give birth here.

We want to get the community into our doors, earn their trust, and then keep them coming back — hopefully for life! We will have refreshments (a preview of the delicious food you can expect to eat when you give birth here — our chef is top notch!). We will have giveaways. We will have information about the upcoming free women’s health education/classes our doctors are going to provide. We will have providers and nurses there to answer any and all questions, including our Labor & Delivery nursing team and Drs. Franson, Christensen, Housley, and Cherysh Stock (Certified Nurse Midwife).

Anyone is free to attend this expo, but we would like to specifically invite those in our community who are either already pregnant, hoping to be pregnant, or those who are hoping to be parents via other means (adoption, surrogacy, etc.) as we also provide pediatric care.