A popular pregnancy guide has ranked Anchorage as one of the "Top 10 Cites to Have a Baby" in America.
What to Expect, a website published by the pregnancy and parenting guidebook franchise "What to Expect When You're Expecting," ranked medium and large U.S. cities on a 100-point scale, based on criteria including availability of prenatal support, a "pregnancy-friendly environment" and health care for new mothers and babies.
Anchorage ranked eighth, after Madison, Wis., and before Rochester, N.Y.
No. 1 on the list: San Francisco.
What To Expect cited Providence Alaska Medical Center's new 85,000-square-foot maternity center and Level III neonatal intensive care unit, which is designed to handle any neonatal emergency, as a plus, along with Alaska Regional Hospital's Family Birth Center.
The site also praised the Alaska Native Medical Center for increasing delivery of prenatal care to its patients and decreasing the number of cesarean sections, lowering infant-mortality rates and upping the number of midwives and childbirth educators available to patients.
Anchorage placed sixth in the category "Best Baby & New Mom Healthcare," a ranking the site said considered factors including the number of low-birthweight babies and pre-term births as well as percentage of mothers who breast-feed.
Reach Michelle Theriault Boots at mtheriault@adn.com or 257-4344.
By MICHELLE THERIAULT BOOTS