John Hunter Hospital

The John Hunter Hospital (JHH) is located at Lookout Rd, New Lambton Heights NSW 2305. They are accredited as a Baby-Friendly Health Initiative hospital and offer different care options for pregnant women. The hospital offers a variety of antenatal education programs to support you and your partner with your physical, mental and emotional preparation for your pregnancy, birth, early parenting and feeding your baby.

midwifery logo

Does John Hunter Hospital have visiting private midwives?

NO

Does John Hunter Hospital have visiting GP Obstetricians?

NO

Does the John Hunter Hospital have visiting Obstetricians?

YES

Hospital Facilities

Antenatal Beds

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Birthing Rooms

?

Postnatal Beds

?

Special Care Nursery Beds

?

Neonatal Intensive Care Beds

?

Are there birth pools available for labour and birth?

Birth centres are designed to be a home away from home. A birth centre is a separate unit located away from the standard birth unit. Birth centres encompass a philosophy that pregnancy and birth are normal, natural events in the life of a woman and her family.

Does John Hunter Hospital have a birth centre?

Birth Suite Tour Video

Coming soon

What support is available if I have difficulties breastfeeding my baby?

Baby-friendly accredited?

The hospital is accredited under the global Baby Friendly Health Initiative program. The hospital supports breastfeeding, and lactation specialist midwives are on-hand to ensure babies are feeding well before going home.

John Hunter Hospital Statistics

John Hunter Hospital

How a woman’s labour starts influences the chance interventions in labour. If labour starts spontaneously, there is less likelihood of interventions. If a woman has an induction of labour there is an increased chance of further interventions. In the above graph, spontaneous labour refers to labour that starts on its own. Labour artificially sped up refers to labours starting spontaneously but are artificially sped up with medication or breaking the bag of water.

Unfortunately, national statistics do not separate spontaneous labour and labour artificially sped up.  So the Australian national statistics combine these two together as spontaneous labour.

Induction of labour in PBB’s graph refers to one or more of the following interventions used to artificially start labour:

  • Artificial rupture of membranes
  • Balloon catheter to open the cervix
  • Prostaglandins placed in the vagina
  • Synthetic oxytocin drug to start or speed up labour

No labour is when a woman has an elective (non-emergency) caesarean before labour starts.

John Hunter Hospital

Since 1985, the World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended countries keep the caesarean birth rate between 10–15% to ensure mortality rates are kept low for mothers and babies (WHO’s last statement update was April 2015). Since 1995 the caesarean birth rate has increased every year across Australia. In 2020 the caesarean birth rate in the NSW maternity hospitals was more than double the WHO recommendation.

A small number of breech babies are born vaginally. Instrumental births include forceps birth and vacuum extraction. The caesarean birth rate includes both elective (planned) and emergency (unplanned) caesarean births.

John Hunter Hospital

Please note that even though there is a dramatic increase in interventions in labour and caesarean birth – there is no change in the perinatal death rate.

PBB attained the data in the statistics from the Australia’s Mothers and Babies by Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) and NSW Mothers and Babies by the NSW Ministry of Health.

Photo Gallery

PBB has created this page to help you be informed about local maternity services. We’d love for you to send us photos of the hospital to include on this page. Send photos to our webmaster.

Date page published 9th April 2022