BOISE, Idaho — In July, Valerie Seamons and her husband will welcome their sixth child — expanding their family to two boys and four girls.
"Our family will be complete," Seamons said. "So, we're excited."
But her birth plan has not gone as expected. Seamons is now on her third doctor for this pregnancy after the first left the state and the clinic her second doctor worked at, Saltzer Health, shut down operations.
So, she found a doctor at Gem Family Medicine in Emmett, where her family lives. While that doctor and Dr. Jonathan Barrus do prenatal and postnatal care at the clinic, they deliver elsewhere because Emmett's only hospital closed its labor and delivery services last year.
For the last year, that place has been West Valley Medical Center. Not anymore. The hospital closed its labor and delivery and NICU units on April 1 because of low birth rates and "challenges in securing consistent coverage."
A spokesperson did not respond to KTVB's request for an interview Friday.
"Anytime I find out something else, you can't help but laugh because you either have to laugh or cry," Seamons said.
Barrus called the closures "unfortunate," considering the population growth in and around the Treasure Valley.
He also said the closures make it much harder for Emmett moms to get a safe delivery plan because they have to drive further and further away. One mom delivered on the side of the highway last year, and another had a dangerous delivery in the town's emergency room.
"[We're] losing the opportunity to provide these services that are so basic and fundamental to medical care," Barrus said. "It's also something that brings a lot of happiness to the providers that are able to be a part of that growth of the families and the miracle of birth, and not being able to be as integral into that part with further distances ... it just makes that process a lot more complicated than it should be.
Barrus and Seamons' doctor are trying to get privileges to deliver at St. Luke's. But he said some of his patients will deliver before that happens, which means he has to hand them off to someone else after working with them so closely.
Seamons mainly worries about the newer moms, especially those without a good support system. She said a mom having to change their birth plan can "wreak havoc" on relationships and their mental health, something she knows firsthand.
"It feels like every couple of months I'm finding out somewhere else that gets closed, and it's somewhere that's massive, like Saltzer or like West Valley that just won't deliver anymore that delivered a lot," she said. "It makes me nervous."
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