And parents want a hospital that will support and encourage their wishes. Hospitals face a greater competition for newborn babies because the number of births are on the decline. Baby-boom women are moving out of their childbearing years, and are being replaced by a smaller group of women born during the baby bust. And more hospitals are in competition to serve them. Hospitals know that the maternity unit is a family's segue into a hospital, with the majority of parents remaining loyal to the hospital where their children were born.
Loyalty translates into money down the road.
According to American Demographics magazine, understanding parents' wishes and needs is the best way to win this competition. But hospital offerings speak louder than words. At Monadnock Community Hospital in Peterborough, rated one of the top 10 hospitals to have a baby in the country by Child Magazine in March 1995, increasing requests from patients for 'water births prompted the hospital to purchase a birthing tub from Europe in 1993. Gretchen Hill woke her husband, Jon, as soon as the contractions started. They climbed out of bed, Gretchen grabbed her suitcase, climbed into their car and headed toward Peterborough from Rindge.