By Seth Boyes,
Katherine and Joshua Woodhouse of Decorah with their daughters Hannah and Reese. (Photos by Samantha Ludeking)
The first baby to be born at WinnMed in Decorah arrived exactly two weeks after hospital officials held an open house to celebrate the completion of its new obstetrics unit.
The first baby of 2025 and the first baby born in the newly renovated WinnMed birthing unit was Reese Dorothy Woodhouse, born Jan. 2 at 6:58 p.m. to Katherine and Joshua Woodhouse of Decorah. Reese joins older sister Hannah.
The new OB unit is one of several improvements undertaken as part of WinnMed’s Transforming Tomorrow project, and staff said several aspects of the new OB unit were designed to minimize disruptions and increase patient comfort.
“The whole goal with the labor is that we came make this so families never really have to leave the room,” said Brianne Leikvold, WinnMed’s director of OB.
Leikvold went on to say the benefits of allowing mothers and their babies to remain together following birth are more numerous than she can count off-hand.
“Not only does it promote breastfeeding, but it promotes bonding with the family,” she said. “It also promotes education that we can give to those parents. They’re getting educated being right in there with them.”
Liekvold credited WinnMed’s nursing staff with ensuring families have the knowledge and resources to be successful before they head home. The hospital’s new OB unit includes spaces where new mothers can learn to breastfeed their infant and nursing staff can check the newborn’s weight or, in some cases, assess an expectant mother before admitting her to the hospital. Hospital staff also demonstrates safe sleeping practices for each baby and performs a safety check of each family’s car seat to be sure it has been properly installed.
“They always want to make sure that everybody feels comfortable,” Liekvold said of her nursing staff. “And one big thing is always making sure you know the basics of taking care of a baby. We don’t just focus on moms. We focus on the family as a whole.”
The hospital’s OB unit is the first of the aspect of the Transforming Tomorrow campaign to reach completion, according to information from WinnMed. Renovation of the OB area began in March of 2024, and Leikvold said that portion of the hospital was torn down to its studs. The OB unit’s footprint remained roughly the same — about 6,200 square-feet — but Leikvold said the new layout and design features are meant to provide a more ideal experience for families as they welcome their newest member into the world. The hospital’s new unit includes six LDRP rooms — or rooms suited for the labor, delivery, recovery and postpartum portions of birth. Each sound-dampened room can be monitored from an expanded nurse’s station in the unit’s main hallway, and wireless fetal heart monitors allow mothers more mobility during the birthing process.
Leikvold said each room’s lighting can be adjusted to suit the appropriate stage of the process — full and bright for delivery or low and calming for rest afterwards. All six rooms also feature heat-jetted tubs for what Leikvold called a spa-like experience, and the rooms also include specially-shaped sinks to safely bathe newborns. Leikvold also noted the renovation provided significantly greater storage than the OB unit’s previous design, and pass-through cupboards in the rooms can be accessed by the nursing staff from an outside hallway to avoid disturbing families as they rest or bond with their baby.
“We can stock the rooms — we can take any kind of laundry, trash, anything — from out in the hallway and never have to come into the patients’ rooms,” she said.
Outside the birth suites, the OB unit’s overall design includes a viewing window for the public to see the hospital’s newest arrivals. Leikvold said it was a feature which many patients requested be included in the renovation designs. “We kind of found, with COVID, it was nice to have that option,” she said. “If you have all these visitors, you don’t have to bring them into the room. We can just show off baby right from the window.”
Leikvold said the OB unit will see additional benefits once portions of the Transforming Tomorrow campaign are complete elsewhere in the hospital — specifically work on WinnMed’s operating rooms.
“The biggest thing that we’re probably the most excited about is, once the Transforming Tomorrow project is completed, we will have direct access to the OR,” Leikvold said. “We will no longer have to go out and around. We can just go straight into the OR.”
She said more efficient access to surgery will be an improvement not only in terms of care but also in terms of privacy for mothers who may need to undergo a C-section or other procedure while giving birth.
WinnMed’s Transforming Tomorrow project is tentatively slated for completion in January of 2026.
View more OB renovation photos in the January 9 Decorah Leader.
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