Virtua Health
Category
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FunTranscript
00:00Hi, it's Nicole from 92.5XTU and Marissa Magnata from 93.3 WMR, The Preston and Steve Show.
00:07And we are so excited to be able to do this video together to welcome an incredible, amazing, just way smarter than us woman.
00:16So say hello to Dr. Nicole Lambour. She's the Vice President of Clinical Operations for Women's Services at Virtua Health.
00:26Dr. Lambour, thank you so much for joining us.
00:28Thank you for having me. I'm really honored to have this opportunity.
00:32And clearly you have the best name ever.
00:35So do you.
00:36Greatness with all these new clothes.
00:37Oh, I don't have a doctor in front of my name, so you're way more of a badass than I am.
00:42Maybe by the end of this, though, you will.
00:44Yes, maybe. You know, I'm sure you went through how many years of school?
00:48Four years of college, then four years of medical school, and then four years of residency.
00:53Yeah, so it's just like being on the radio.
00:54But the cool thing about being on the radio is we get to interview, we get to connect, and we get to be educated by incredible minds and incredible women.
01:04And we're so excited to partner with Virtua, and especially for women's issues, right?
01:09Absolutely. And a local girl. You're from Marlton, correct?
01:12I am. I grew up in Marlton.
01:14Lovely. All the Jersey love today.
01:16Yes, absolutely.
01:17Absolutely. So one of Virtua's services is delivery and maternity.
01:21In fact, one of my best friends, Elisa, delivered both of her sons at Virtua.
01:24I went to visit her at the hospital.
01:26Maybe you delivered their babies.
01:28Oh, my God, I got to text her.
01:30And it was such an amazing experience for her.
01:33And obviously, she's one of my best friends.
01:34So I don't have kids yet, but I wanted to know the process.
01:38And she really did, you know, explain everything to me.
01:41She raves about it.
01:42She now lives in North Carolina.
01:43And she was like, if I have a third kid, I need to go back to Jersey so I can deliver at Virtua.
01:47Tell us about some of the initiatives that you've launched.
01:49You've been at Virtua for a few number of years.
01:52Yes, I've been at Virtua for quite a while now.
01:54I was in private practice for a long time and then moved into a hospital role as a laborist.
02:00And now I do clinical work as a laborist one day a week, and the rest is administrative.
02:05But I've been here for quite a number of years now in different capacities.
02:09You know, Virtua, I have been part of Virtua, away from Virtua, and then back to Virtua.
02:16And there's something that always brings you back because it is just such an incredible place to work and have your baby.
02:22So, you know, Virtua is well known in the community for all of our services.
02:26And I think some of the high points that we have are really our maternal fetal medicine services and our focus on some of the higher risk pregnancies.
02:34We see more and more women really delaying childbirth until they're a little bit older.
02:39And with that comes different risk conditions that I just feel that we are very equipped at handling through our maternal fetal medicine services and our high-level NICU with our partnership with CHOP.
02:50I just feel that no matter what your need is, whether it's, you know, low risk, maybe it's your first pregnancy and you just are a little bit nervous and scared, we have such support systems through nursing initiatives, our laborists being there at the hospital to just give you that higher level of support and attention to our higher risk conditions that require an additional specialist or even the NICU if you have an issue that involves the baby as well.
03:18So you hit something on the head. You hit high-risk pregnancies. Now, we've grown up always hearing that about women having babies later in life.
03:26And a lot of our friends are in their 30s and 40s and just starting to think about having kids now, have some friends that have frozen their eggs and planning on it in the future.
03:35Yeah. Do you freeze eggs there too?
03:38We don't do it at Virtua, but we work with a number of groups that do reproductive medicine in the outpatient. And then once they're pregnant, they come to us.
03:46We're going to talk about that all because I want to freeze my eggs. I need to know what I need to do. So obviously you, you are smart about it and you are like the egg lady, you know.
03:56And you just need a good network to talk about it.
03:58Absolutely.
03:58These are sometimes those taboo subjects that people are fearful of chatting with their good girlfriends, but here we are. Let's talk about it.
04:06Yeah. So, you know, that is part of people delaying childbearing or knowing that they're getting older and still want children later on. They're doing freezing of their eggs.
04:15The good thing about freezing the eggs is that they can do a lot of analysis of the quality of those eggs and making sure that they're implanting, you know, the healthiest fertilized egg once you go through in vitro and things like that.
04:29So there are benefits to doing that. I don't want to speak too much about that because I don't want to misspeak for my reproductive endocrinology colleagues who are much more knowledgeable on that subject.
04:40But, you know, with delaying childbearing, even if your eggs are younger, you still are at risk of different conditions because your body's older.
04:51And as our bodies age, you know, we know we're at risk of other chronic conditions.
04:55That's why we see conditions develop later in life for people in terms of high blood pressure, diabetes, heart conditions.
05:02And the longer our bodies are on this earth and having different exposures and different things that we do over our lifetime puts us at risk of different conditions as we age.
05:11So a pregnancy and bring out some of those conditions that maybe people weren't even aware of or present prior to pregnancy.
05:18Yeah, that's amazing. That virtual offers so many services for people who, you know, a lot of times they're like, we want to wait a little bit.
05:26And I think that, I mean, all my friends are, we're in their late thirties when they started to have kids and they just love their experience at Virtua, which is amazing.
05:33So obviously Instagram, social media, so many people are sharing their pregnancies, right?
05:38They're sharing their labor stories. They're sharing, a lot of them are sharing their labor, right?
05:44And a lot more people are going with midwives and they're talking more about the holistic approach to labor.
05:52So what is the advantages of having a midwife and a natural birth?
05:55Well, you know, we're so excited to have our midwife colleagues with us at Virtua.
06:00We, when I started at Virtua, there was one midwife on staff and we now have over 25 midwives on staff.
06:07Yeah, it's an incredible growth and something that I'm particularly proud of because, you know, you asked before about initiatives that I helped accomplish and I really see the value in midwifery care for a number of reasons.
06:19But a few years ago now, we really focused on reducing our C-section rate because our C-sections have increased the number of complications afterwards.
06:27If you have a surgical birth versus a vaginal birth, you're at risk of additional things, a higher risk of bleeding and infections and things like that, that are not as risky when you have a vaginal birth.
06:39So we realized we really needed to do something to reduce that C-section rate and we started to work more closely with our midwife colleagues and started to bring them more aggressively into the staff and in many different areas of our women's health program.
06:57So midwifery care is really focused on holistic birth and holistic care, being very present to the patient so they have a lower volume of patients generally so they can spend more time with the patient, really getting to know them, really helping them be at ease.
07:14And really focused on their entire health and really focused on their entire health and how their eating habits, how their sleeping habits, how their social acquaintances and different things that affect their social life impacts their pregnancy and impacts their overall health.
07:29And taking that real natural holistic approach has helped us see where we can kind of intervene less and allow nature to take its process, you know, take it through the natural process without us always having to intervene.
07:44As a physician, I can tell you, as an MD, you know, we train in how to make things better and always feeling like we need to fix a problem.
07:53And sometimes a problem doesn't exist and we need to let nature take its course, even if that natural course is a little bit longer, we have to be patient and let it happen rather than intervening and potentially causing more problems by intervening too soon or too often.
08:10Yeah, I think I read that the midwife is really there to support the mother and to be like an advocate of saying like, we worked on this and you know your midwife for a long time.
08:22And so you kind of develop a personal relationship and there to encourage you like, don't give up.
08:27I know that it's hard, but we're going to do our meditation right now, you know.
08:32With all the people around you too, which seems like the most joyous part of this whole situation.
08:38Yeah, well, and you could at least hold on to somebody while you scream, you know what I mean?
08:43So what exactly is a birth center and what is offered in the birth center for people who aren't familiar, the difference between just going to a hospital and delivering and then actually being part of a birth center?
08:56We heard a rumor that you guys are opening a birth center right there at Virtua, correct?
09:00Yes, that rumor is true.
09:02And we're very excited.
09:03We're hoping to open any day now, hopefully over the next month or two.
09:07We will be ready to open our doors as the first freestanding birth center in South Jersey.
09:13And a birth center is really a natural home-like environment to have a childbirth, to have your baby.
09:20And obviously being in a home-like environment, there's different things that aren't available.
09:25It's not a medical birth.
09:26It doesn't have all the bells and whistles that a hospital does.
09:29But it's really meant for those that want a completely natural process in a home-like setting.
09:35And the benefit of a birth center over having it in your home is that it's still a controlled environment.
09:40So we are ready and prepared for any emergencies.
09:43There are medications available.
09:45There's processes and policies in place to transport you quickly over to the hospital.
09:50Our birth center is on the campus of Virtua Voorhees Hospital.
09:54So it's very close in proximity so that the EMS can get you over there quickly if you need a surgical birth or, you know, you need other interventions that require hospital care.
10:06The benefit of being in a home-like environment is to choose that is really, again, to support that natural process, to have your family around you.
10:14There's less restrictions.
10:16It's more on your terms, following your birth plan.
10:20It can offer things like water birth.
10:22We do have that available in our birth center for those that are seeking out that experience.
10:27I mean, you're looking at the pool.
10:29I know.
10:29And you hang over the side and you're like, get this thing out of me.
10:32You're speaking about this.
10:34And I always think, like, I couldn't do this in my one-bedroom apartment.
10:37You know?
10:37I couldn't set up a pool.
10:39Wait, do you have something to tell us?
10:41No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
10:43But I follow Hilary Duff on Instagram.
10:46Yeah.
10:46And she had her whole birth, a water birth right there in her living room with all of her children around.
10:50And literally, that's what I was thinking.
10:52It would be, like, under my stove.
10:54It's the only place.
10:55So it sounds like Virtua is building a wonderful place that is not only a perfect opportunity, but it's also safe in case there are any repercussions that happen.
11:05Yeah, definitely.
11:05And, you know, the home-like environment, it includes, it looks like a mini home in a lot of ways.
11:09You go in, there's a family room area, there's a kitchen, ability to make your own food, and it's just a very comfortable environment.
11:18There's also an outpatient side where they deliver just routine prenatal care and have GYN visits as well.
11:24Midwifery care is not just obstetrics.
11:26They do well-women care.
11:27They do a lot of the same services that OB-GYNs do, but they tend to focus on the wellness aspect.
11:34So when you have, you know, a particular illness, a problem, or a high-risk condition, they refer you to an obstetrician or maternal fetal medicine.
11:43But they do all of your routine GYN care, routine annual visits, as well as pap smears, and can take care of you really throughout your whole lifespan, not just when you're giving birth.
11:54Right. So even if you're not pregnant yet, but if it's something you're thinking about in the future, you can still go see a midwife and still start kind of that process.
12:03And maybe it's five years from now, but it's nice to kind of get into that routine, and it's more about overall wellness.
12:09Definitely. And some of the teenagers actually prefer that type of care.
12:14They put them at ease.
12:15There's a comfort level there that feels from the start as less medical, less interventional.
12:21And you can kind of feel that from the beginning of your visit with a midwife going into their offices are generally a little bit more relaxed in the feeling.
12:28And you feel like you're going to a spa in some ways or, you know, more of a home-like environment.
12:34And it's, it makes, especially the younger teens feel more comfortable.
12:40So a lot of them will start then and continue with a midwife throughout their, you know, throughout their life.
12:45That's amazing.
12:46The younger teens, but I think some 30, 40 somethings are about to switch over.
12:49Yeah, I was going to say, so as soon as one of us gets pregnant first, we will head to virtual.
12:55You're going to start so many rumors.
12:56Who's putting bets?
12:58Who's going to be preggers first?
13:00Oh, we could have a baby pool.
13:02My poor mother.
13:05Actually, my sister-in-law just announced she's pregnant.
13:08Congratulations, auntie.
13:09Yeah, I'm a first time, first time auntie to be.
13:12So they live near the Pocono, so unfortunately they can't go to virtual.
13:15But if they lived here, that's where they would be.
13:17So thank you so much.
13:21You know, and I encourage them, even for your family members, there's a lot of information on our website.
13:25So even if she's out of the area, you know, I encourage her to look at that and educate herself.
13:30Anybody having a baby anywhere should really educate themselves and be their own advocate.
13:34And that's the best way to have the safest pregnancy.
13:36Yeah, that's great information.
13:38I really appreciate that.
13:39Thank you for that advice.
13:40Yeah, thank you so much.
13:41Very excited to have you.
13:43So I, you know, be surrounding myself with smart, badass woman is my favorite thing.
13:48Well, thank you.
13:49Thanks for having me.
13:50Now go have a baby at Virtual, everybody.
13:52There you go.