BY BROOKE SJOBERG
The takeaway
Put in perspective
Growing need
The estimated supply of employed OB-GYNs in Texas has dropped by half from 2021-23.
Austin-based Midwife Julia Bower, has been providing prenatal, home birth and postpartum care for mothers in the area for 27 years. While Bower specializes mainly in home births, she will help transfer a client to a hospital if they are experiencing complications or otherwise need additional intervention during labor. Bower said her most frequented labor and delivery unit, St. David’s North Austin Medical Center, has been busy in the last few years. Similarly, Kelly Pedrozo, a doula with ATX Doulas, said she finds some of her clients have experienced longer waits based on nursing staff and OB-GYN availability. Sasha Robey, a patient of Austin Area Obstet- rics, Gynecology and Fertility, said she was able to secure an initial appointment with a provider at the practice by opting to see a nurse practi- tioner overseen by an OB-GYN. Later, when she was planning her pregnancy, she chose to stay within the practice but changed
Local hospital systems have several expansions to prenatal, maternity and gynecological care in various stages of completion to meet the needs of the growing population of Travis County. Whitney said an uptick in babies born could prompt the need for more niche specialties and treatment for birth defects and abnormalities.
OB-GYN supply
4K 2.4K 3.2K 0 800 1.6K
3,854 projected need by 2030
1,830
1,740
1,550
1,500
2023 910
2021
2019
2020
2022
Hospital additions and improvements St. David’s North Austin Women's Center:
SOURCE: U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS/COMMUNITY IMPACT
to a newer provider who was in less demand than other well-established OB-GYNs within the clinic. “It worked out really well, but I think it was really because I’d kind of planned ahead,” Robey said. “I’m not sure it would have worked out like that if I didn’t already have an annual appoint- ment schedule that I could just switch over to a different type of appointment.”
• 4 operating rooms for C-sections • 68 nursery, labor and delivery beds
• 24 antepartum beds • 30 neonatal intensive care unit beds
St. David's South Austin Center:
• Convert several postpartum rooms to labor, delivery and recovery rooms
• Convert 11-bed surgical unit to postpartum rooms
SOURCE: ST. DAVID’S HEALTHCARE/COMMUNITY IMPACT
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