Best Hospitals For Maternity Care: Five MD Hospitals On U.S. News List

MARYLAND — Where their baby is born is one of the most important decisions parents make. In Maryland, five hospitals were ranked among the Best Hospitals for Maternity Care for 2022-2023 released Tuesday by U.S. News & World Report.

In the ranking of nearly 650 hospitals providing labor and delivery services, fewer than half received the “high performing” designation, the highest a hospital can receive for maternity care.

Of the 15 Maryland hospitals that participated in the maternity services survey, the following received the “high performing” designation:

• Luminis Health Anne Arundel Medical Center, Annapolis
• Sinai Hospital of Baltimore, Baltimore
• Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, Baltimore
• Johns Hopkins Medicine - Howard County General Hospital, Columbia
• University of Maryland Shore Medical Center at Easton, Easton

Each hospital participating in the survey received a scorecard describing their performance on a checklist of items parents look for when choosing where to have their baby.

Luminis Health Anne Arundel Medical Center celebrated the U.S. News ranking, which a statement called the highest award a hospital can earn.

“Since we welcome more than 5,500 babies into the world each year, we like to say our teams are trusted to deliver a kindergarten class a day,” said Sherry Perkins, president of Luminis Health Anne Arundel Medical Center, in a news release. “Thank you to our physicians, nurse midwives, nurses, nurse practitioners, technologists, and the entire team for providing exceptional maternity care to our families.”

Other Maryland hospitals that completed the U.S. News survey, but did not rank as “high performing” were:

• Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore
• University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center, Towson
• University of Maryland Baltimore Washington Medical Center, Glen Burnie
• Carol Hospital Center, Westminster
• Holy Cross Germantown Hospital, Germantown
• Holy Cross Hospital - Silver Spring, Silver Spring
• MedStar St. Mary's Hospital, Leonardtown
• Mercy Medical Center - Baltimore, Baltimore
• Meritus Medical Center, Hagerstown
• University of Maryland Charles Regional Medical Center, La Plata

U.S. News said relatively little information is readily available to the public about which hospitals are best at caring for expectant parents after an uncomplicated pregnancy.

The ranking differs from other hospital rankings in an important way: The patients at maternity hospitals are younger, so the data used in the rankings was collected individually from the hospitals, rather than through required Medicare reports.

The rankings are based on C-section rates in lower-risk pregnancies, newborn complication rates, exclusive breast milk feeding rates and early elective delivery rates, among other factors.

This year for the first time as part of its methodology, U.S. News considered rates of episiotomy procedures (a small cut made at the vaginal opening to assist in difficult deliveries), rates of vaginal births of subsequent children after a Cesarean delivery, and whether hospitals met new federal criteria for “birthing-friendly” practices — a publicly reported, public-facing designation by the Department of Health and Human Services to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity.

Also new this year, hospitals that tracked and reported their outcomes for patients of different races and ethnicities were rewarded in the rankings.

“Identifying racial disparities in maternity care is a vital step toward achieving health equity,” Min Hee Seo, senior health data scientist at U.S. News, said in a news release.

“The new measures provide expectant parents with many important data points, such as whether hospitals implemented patient safety practices, to assist them in making a decision about where to receive maternity care,” Seo said.