After a quarter-century of beautiful births, San Diego’s Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women & Newborns hit a milestone Friday, welcoming its 200,000th baby.
The hospital had been waiting all week for the special delivery.
The newborn and the family will be gifted this afternoon with a commemorative certificate and basket of personalized goodies delivered by CEO Trisha Khaleghi.
Sharp Mary Birch, located at 3003 Health Center Dr., opened in 1992. Back then, it had 169 beds and was used as a traditional nursery for newborns. Twenty-five years later, it’s considered the largest and most extensive center for women’s health in Southern California.
Each year, the hospital welcomes around 9,400 babies into the world, making the facility the leader in newborn deliveries in San Diego County and in the state of California. The hospital also specializes in neonatal intensive care of little ones, featuring 84 beds in that unit.
Carmen Colombo, chief nursing officer for Sharp Mary Birch, told NBC 7 earlier this week that despite the hospital’s high volume of births, the staff there strives to make each and every delivery special.
“Every birth is an exciting, special event. So, we do what we do best, which is to make their experience here at Sharp Mary Birch one that’s memorable,” she said.
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While there have been some changes to the hospital over the past 25 years, the focus has remained the same. From day one, Colombo, who’s been with Sharp since 1997, said the vision of this hospital was to give families that individualized care.
She said walking the halls of the hospital and catching a glimpse of the excitement in the faces of families who have just welcomed a new baby -- from parents and grandparents, to big brothers and sisters -- is always a wonderful feeling.
“It’s special to that family, and when you know that it's special to that family, and you can see that spark in their eyes and their excitement, it doesn't get old,” she explained. “That’ll never get old.”
