News Story Detail

NorthBay Medical Center is one of 124 hospitals that met or surpassed a statewide target aimed at reducing births via cesarean sections in first-time mothers with low-risk pregnancies.

California Health and Human Services, along with Cal Hospital Compare, released the 2021 Maternity Honor Roll list, noting that this year’s award reflects hospital discharge and birth certificate data from 208 California hospitals in 2020 that offer maternity services and participated in the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative (CMQCC)’s Maternal Data Center.

“At NorthBay, we consider it an honor to provide the highest quality of care for our smallest patients and their families,” said Wayne Gietz, president of NorthBay Healthcare Group. “Receiving this recognition is a testament to our caregivers and their commitment to providing the most compassionate care and advanced medicine, close to home for new mothers and their babies.”

Katie Lydon, senior director of Women & Children’s Services, is proud of her team’s latest accomplishment, noting the department has actively focused on decreasing the number of

C-sections for first-time moms since 2017, and has made great progress in education and patient safety.

“The team always puts the patient first, and that has led to our organization earning a Baby Friendly designation, this Cal Hospital Compare award and more,” said Katie. “We work hard to make NorthBay a great place to have a baby with every patient, every encounter, every time.”

All hospitals on the 2021 Maternity Honor Roll demonstrate that collaborative action can lead to positive change, noted Dr. Mark Ghaly, state Health and Human Services Agency secretary.

“I congratulate these hospitals and providers for their work in reducing medically unnecessary C-sections,” said Dr. Ghaly. “With the impact of COVID-19 on our health care community, it’s especially important to celebrate exemplary hospital performance.”

“Improving the quality of maternity care in hospitals is an ongoing process,” added Dr. Ghaly. “Although we have more work to do, the data shows that we are heading in the right direction. These annual measurements through Cal Hospital Compare help us to applaud those hospitals that are doing excellent work while also showing where improvement is still needed.”

Evidence suggests that the hospital where a woman delivers, and practice patterns of her obstetric team, will impact the likelihood of having a C-section. Even for low-risk, first-birth pregnancies, huge variations are noted in C-section rates at individual hospitals. In California hospitals, these rates range from less than 12 percent to more than 30 percent.

Overuse of C-sections matters. For mothers, cesareans can result in higher rates of complications like hemorrhage, transfusions, infection and blood clots. Once a mother has had a C-section, she has a greater than 90 percent chance of having one again for subsequent births, leading to higher risks of additional major complications. The surgery also brings risks for babies, including higher rates of infection, respiratory complications and neonatal intensive care unit stays.

“Cal Hospital Compare is proud to contribute to the statewide effort to reduce unnecessary C-sections by providing a way to evaluate and celebrate hospital performance and show where improvement is needed,” said Bruce Spurlock, M.D., the executive director of Cal Hospital Compare. “We invite all California hospitals to use this honor roll as a tool to evaluate and benchmark performance against other hospitals.”