A BRAND new birthing centre has opened at Bournemouth Hospital.

The £860,000 purpose-built centre, which has two rooms with birthing pools and a third room for overnight stays, officially opened on Monday after a 20-week construction.

It has already seen the birth of its first baby – a little boy who made his arrival in the world in birthing room one at 8.36pm on Saturday, a day after the move from the old unit in the heart of the hospital.

The midwife-led centre, which includes two en-suite birthing rooms with quick-fill birth pools, is available to all low-risk mums and has been designed with natural birth in mind, said head of midwifery Pauline Hawkes.

She added: “The rooms are much bigger, the birth pools are better quality, and of course we have the pull down beds for dads to stay overnight. It is just so much better than what we had before.

“Another advantage is if you transfer, and 25 per cent of our mums do, you can go straight through a door and into an ambulance – which is much nicer for women than being wheeled through the hospital as they were before.”

Julie Horn, who has been a midwife at Bournemouth for a decade, was assisting the first mum to give birth at the unit on Saturday. She told the Echo: “The environment is more a home from home than a traditional hospital unit.

“As much as possible the medical equipment is out of sight, although we can access it when we need to, we can dim the lights, and the rooms are far bigger so women can stay mobile and have an active birth. It’s better all round and we are excited for the women who will come here.”

Newly qualified midwife Katie Winwood, who was also attending the unit’s first birth, said: “It’s amazing and I feel really honoured to be a part of this – it’s a new beginning and it’s really exciting.”

Trust chairman Jane Stichbury, said: “There were 320 babies born here last year and 80 in the community so there are a lot of families in this community who will benefit from this facility, and also for the staff, it’s a fantastic facility in which to work.”