COVINGTON – The New Family Center at St. Tammany Health System’s flagship St. Tammany Parish Hospital has again been included on U.S. News & World Report’s list of Best Hospitals for Maternity Care for 2024-2025. It is one of only 12 Louisiana hospitals on the list and the only hospital in St. Tammany Parish to be included.
In developing its rankings, the publication evaluated the labor and delivery care units at 817 hospitals – an all-time high – with a specific focus on patients with uncomplicated pregnancies.
“With a record-breaking number of hospitals evaluated, U.S. News’ 2025 Best Hospitals for Maternity Care ratings represent the most comprehensive resource yet for expectant parents,” said Jennifer Winston, Ph.D., health data scientist at U.S. News. “These high-performing hospitals showcase exceptional care for expectant parents, demonstrating significantly lower C-section rates and severe unexpected newborn complications compared to hospitals not recognized by U.S. News.”
St. Tammany was deemed a high-performing hospital, with an “excellent” rate of minimizing avoidable C-sections and at avoiding earlier-than-recommended deliveries.
Other areas in which it was held out for distinction includes a breastfeeding rate (53.1%) that exceeded both the Southern average (38.8%) and the national average (49%); its demonstrated commitment to improving maternal outcomes by participating in quality improvement collaboratives; and the rarity of newborn complications in full-term newborns with normal birthweight and no pre-existing conditions.
“St. Tammany Health System has been welcoming babies into the world for a long time – since Dec. 2, 1954, in fact, when we delivered our first child – so we have a lot of practice,” President and CEO Joan Coffman said. “That said, I have to give a shout-out to our entire New Family Center team, which with every birth continues to demonstrate the same unflagging commitment to maintaining our reputation as the safest, most comfortable and most professional birthing hospital on the Northshore.”
In addition to its space and homelike patient rooms, the New Family Center includes a 14-bed Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and, as of September 2023, a purpose-built Obstetric Emergency Department.
The STHS New Family Center also serves as a breast milk donor depot, part of the Mother’s Milk Bank of Louisiana; and offers an array of childbirth and parenting classes.
The U.S. News & World Report designation is the latest in a litany of recognitions bestowed upon the St. Tammany Health System New Family Center, including from Women’s Choice and Baby-Friendly USA. It has also been named a Certified Autism Center by the IBCCES.
The U.S. News Best Hospitals for Maternity Care methodology is based entirely on objective measures of quality, such as C-section rates in lower-risk pregnancies, severe unexpected newborn complication rates, exclusive breast milk feeding rates, birthing-friendly practices and reporting on racial/ethnic disparities, among other measures. Refinements to the scoring methodology for the 2025 ratings include increased weighting of the racial and ethnic disparities measure and increased weighting of the birthing-friendly practices measure.