The entrance to Beaufort Memorial’s Collins Birthing Center and Surgical Center closed earlier this week for construction. Patients and visitors will need to use different entrances and exits during the four-month construction project.

During construction, all surgical patients and visitors should enter through the Cochrane Heart Center and Main Lobby entrances. These entrances will open at 5 a.m. Patients and visitors will be guided to the surgical waiting area for registration.

Laboring mothers will be asked to enter the Birthing Center through the side of the building during the day and through the emergency department after 9 p.m. Visitors to postpartum may use the Cochrane Heart Center entrance during the day, and the emergency department entrance after 9 p.m. Visitors will be checked in by security before entering the unit.

The closure will make way for the construction of a new entrance with a large canopy to provide coverage for patients and visitors outside, and a remodeled and expanded waiting area inside. During this time the Birthing Center’s postpartum rooms also will be renovated in this final phase of the complete remodel of the center. <span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>

Once open, the renovated birthing center will include eight labor and delivery rooms, 12 postpartum rooms and a five-patient antepartum unit. The visitor waiting area will nearly double in size and each room will be furnished with new, comfortable recliners for visitors, among other things.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>

The hospital’s first baby was delivered on May 1, 1944, nearly 75 years ago. Since that time tens of thousands of babies have been born at Beaufort Memorial, including many of the staff members who work there today.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>

“We have a long, happy history of caring for mothers and babies and look forward to continuing that tradition for years to come,” said Collins Birthing Center Director Patti Valentini.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>