St. Luke’s sees record number of births this year

US birth rates are predicted to decline throughout the remainder of the 21st century, from 10.8 births per 1,000 people in 2023 to 8.5 per 1,000 in 2100, according to usafacts.org. 

However, at the same time, Bethlehem-based St. Luke’s University Health Network said it is seeing a record number of births. 

For the first time in the Network’s history, a total of more than 6,000 babies were born at St. Luke’s three birthing hospitals during a fiscal year, which ends June 30. The figure surpasses Fiscal Year 2024’s total of 5,000 births, which at that time was a new record. 

“This major milestone reflects our patients’ trust in, and desire for, the special care and expertise they experience in our labor and delivery suites at St. Luke’s Allentown, Anderson and Upper Bucks campuses,” said Elizabeth Dierking, chair of the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology.  

Jessika Haynoss, vice president of Women & Children’s services for the health network said with deliveries declining, St. Luke’s was looking for new ways to attract expectant families. 

She noted that a birthing center to not lose money they need to have at least 900 deliveries per year. With more than 6,000 births spread out at those three locations, she said St. Luke’s has made enough money that it can reinvest back into the health system to improve care. 

By concentrating the network’s birthing centers to those three locations, it helps centralize the service, making everything more efficient and cost effective. 

But, she emphasized that it also improves care.  

St. Luke’s has more than 100 providers in small practices throughout the health network’s footprint. 

Those providers are each assigned to one of the nearby birthing centers, which means the family is much more likely to have had personal experience with the provider assisting with the birth. 

“Smaller pools mean you get to meet the providers, and one of those will handle the delivery,” Haynoss said. “It’s more personal.” 

She said the way the system is set up, expectant mothers and couples know they can count on St. Luke’s prenatal and postnatal care as well as the delivery of their babies by the small and intimate practices and care teams that provide patients personalized care, and that is making more families choose St. Luke’s to give birth. 

In response to demand, in 2024 the Network in 2024 opened a new and expanded Labor and Delivery unit in its Women & Babies Pavilion at its St. Luke’s Allentown Campus, doubling the size of its original unit. St. Luke’s Upper Bucks Campus began delivering babies in 2021, following the St. Luke’s Anderson Campus, which launched its birthing program during the COVID pandemic in 2020. 

To support the growing number of families in the region, St. Luke’s also continues to invest in pediatric care. In 2023, St. Luke’s Children’s Hospital opened at the Bethlehem Campus, providing inpatient care, critical care, pediatric emergency care and pediatric surgical care.