On Monday, April 12, leaders of Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville and Wolfson Children’s Hospital, along with donors Mark and Meredith (Chartrand) Frisch and their families, celebrated the enhanced birthing and postpartum experience mothers, babies and families now have on the hospitals’ main campus.
The dedication of the Chartrand Frisch Family Birth & Newborn Center marks the completion of a $16-million renovation project to the Baptist Jacksonville maternal evaluation, delivery, maternal newborn and high-risk units. Work began in January 2019.
“For decades, Baptist Health has been the top choice of mothers to deliver their babies,” said Michael Mayo, Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville hospital president. “Our goal in redesigning this space was to make this monumental life experience even more special for moms and families. These new suites are as impressive as our state-of-the-art maternal newborn care.”
A family advisory group, comprised of current and expecting moms, was central to the design process to ensure every aspect of the renovated units improved the patient and family experience.
Features include:
The center is located adjacent to Wolfson Children’s Hospital’s high-level neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), where expert teams of pediatric specialists provide immediate life-saving care when a newborn needs it. The center will also have direct access to the 92-bed neonatal intensive care center in the new Wolfson Children’s Critical Care Tower, scheduled to open in early 2022.
“We want parents to take comfort knowing that, should something happen, we have the very best experts and state-of-the-art technology available to immediately provide world-class care to their precious new baby,” said Michael D. Aubin, president of Wolfson Children’s Hospital.
Mark and Meredith Frisch know all too well how important access to expert neonatal and high-risk obstetric care is.
The high school classmates married in 2008, and Meredith became pregnant with their first child in 2010. When she was 33 weeks along, she fell, causing her water to break.
On March 30, 2011, baby Lyla was born at Baptist Medical Center South and went on to spend 17 days in the Wolfson NICU there. During her second pregnancy, this time with twins, Meredith had to undergo a procedure at just 20 weeks to ensure her cervix remained closed for the duration of the pregnancy. She was also put on bed rest.
Meredith delivered babies Abby and Hannah at Baptist Jacksonville at just 31 weeks on Dec. 1, 2012. The twins spent nearly a month in Wolfson’s main NICU before going home healthy and thriving.
The Frisch family, which now also includes a son named Emmitt, was so inspired by the care they received, they decided to make a generous gift to help fund the renovations to the Baptist Jacksonville Maternal Newborn Unit.
Meredith’s parents, Nancy and Gary Chartrand, her brother, Jeff Chartrand, and Mark’s parents, Ben and Pat Frisch, also generously contributed to the project. The Chartrand and Frisch families helped inspire many others to make financial gifts that made this project possible.
“We hope families who enter the Chartrand Frisch Family Birth & Newborn Center are comforted knowing they are in expert hands, and are able to relax and focus on what matters most: the new life they are bringing into the world,” said CC Brooks, vice president of patient care services at Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville and Wolfson Children’s Hospital.
