Buffalo, N.Y.-based Oishei Children's Hospital submitted a certificate of need to the state's department of health to open a high-risk maternity unit as it experiences a growth in deliveries.
Deliveries at the hospital have risen 35 percent since 2012, the hospital said May 25.
The $6.6 million project would have 12 private inpatient rooms for the hospital's high-risk antepartum maternity patients. Currently, these patients use beds throughout the hospital's labor and delivery and mother-baby floors, according to a news release from Oishei.
The new rooms would span 11,000 square feet on the hospital's seventh floor, which house its pharmacy and pediatric outpatient services. Most services will stay on the floor, but outpatient infusion services will move to the second floor.
"The much-needed expansion will allow us to better care for more high-risk moms before and after delivery and accommodate the growing number of women who require the comprehensive and complex care services," Allegra Jaros, president of Oishei Children's Hospital, said in the news release.