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Call center 93 253 21 00

Monday to Sunday, from 8 am to 8:30 pm

Scheduling or change of appointment +34 93 253 21 00

Monday to Friday, from 8 am to 7 pm

Private Care - International Patients +34 93 600 97 83

Monday to Friday, from 8 am to 7 pm

SJD Barcelona Children's Hospital

Passeig Sant Joan de Déu, 2, 08950 Esplugues de Llobregat

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Maternal-Fetal Medicine and Obstetrics

Maternal-Fetal Medicine and Obstetrics
Paciente embarazada atendida en el área de medicina materno fetal del Hospital Sant Joan de Déu Barcelona

At the Maternal-Fetal Medicine and Obstetrics of SJD Barcelona Children's Hospital we care for the health of the mother and her baby.

At the Woman's Area of SJD Barcelona Children's Hospital we bring together expertise from several different areas to offer world-leading care as part of BCNatal since 2013.

  • BCNatal integrates the maternal-fetal medicine departments of two first-class university hospitals: SJD Barcelona Children’s Hospital, one of the largest pediatric hospitals in Europe, and Hospital Clínic, a general hospital ranked among the world’s best.
  • We are a fully comprehensive clinical centre offering state-of-the-art healthcare to mothers and their babies.
  • We attend over 7,000 births per year, making BCNatal one of the largest clinical and research centres dedicated to mothers and their unborn children in Europe, hosting expertise in normal childbirth, treating the most complex and rare maternal and fetal problems, and everything in between.
  • All our activity is focused on the mother and child: we offer personalized care adjusted to the specific risks of each pregnancy.
  • Our work follows clinical protocols which are continuously updated according to the best scientific evidence. Our protocols are consulted online more than 60,000 times a month by physicians from other hospitals and are followed by hundreds of institutions worldwide.

Why SJD Barcelona Children's Hospital?

Highest safety levels with the best experience

For normal pregnancy and delivery, our main goal is to achieve the highest safety levels with the best experience for mother and child, ensuring a personalized and respectful treatment in childbirth.

Fetal medicine and surgery programme

In our multidisciplinary Fetal Medicine and Surgery referral programme, we attend thousands of cases referred both from Spain and abroad for the evaluation of fetal problems. We are pioneers in fetal surgery, having applied several techniques for the first time globally and have one of the most comprehensive experiences in the world in this field.

World-class research and innovation centre

As a world-class research and innovation centre, we generate an important part of the scientific knowledge that we continuously apply to improve our practice and to increase the safety of mothers and babies. 

BCNatal Results

+
7.000

Annual births

+
8.000

Specialised fetal explorations

13,5
%

Cesarean section rate in low-risk pregnancies

>
2,000

Surgeries

100-130

Surgeries per year

25

Years of experience

BCNatal integrates the maternal-fetal medicine departments of SJD Barcelona Children's Hospital and Hospital Clínic.

Pregnancy

Our main objective is for pregnant women to feel comfortable and share one of the best moments in their lives with us and their families.

These are special moments, and we would like for you to be always accompanied by the person of your choice during your visits, while you undergo ultrasounds and, ultimately, at any time during pregnancy, birth and the postpartum period.

SJD Barcelona Children's Hospital follows the MARE programme, a model that respects maternity and distinguishes us in obstetric, pregnancy, birth and postpartum care

Safe and Dignfied Childbirth

Para ofrecer un tratamiento seguro y respetuoso durante el parto en BCNatal - Hospital Sant Joan de Déu, innovamos continuamente aplicando avances y desarrollos en nuevas tecnologías y modelos para conseguir la mejor experiencia de maternidad y los más altos niveles de seguridad.

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Ten reasons for your baby to be born at SJD

Our main objective is to achieve the highest levels of safety with the best experience for mother and baby, guaranteeing personalized and respectful treatment during childbirth.

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Complications of Pregnancy

BCNatal – SJD Barcelona Children’s Hospital provides expertise and care for all kinds of high-risk pregnancy.

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The baby's layette

Consult what you should bring to the SJD Barcelona Children’s Hospital if you have decided to give birth in our center. 

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How to register the newborn baby at the hospital

One of the formalities that can be taken care of at SJD Barcelona Children’s Hospital during the admission if the family so wishes is to register the birth of the baby in the Civil Register.

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Childbirth experience in SJD Barcelona Children's Hospital

Childbirth experience in SJD Barcelona Children's Hospital
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUS7yU_8zms

Fetal Medicine

We care for children’s health even before they leave the womb with advanced prenatal diagnosis. We are leaders in fetal medicine.

  • We conduct more than 8,500 advanced fetal examinations yearly, including 3,000 echocardiographies and 1,200 neurosonographies.
  • As part of the almost 1,000 prenatal diagnosis procedures we carry out yearly we offer the full range of advanced genetic techniques (array-CGH, whole exome sequencing) and non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT).
Fetal medicine techniques

Prenatal diagnosis techniques to detect fetal problems may enable a pregnancy to continue and significantly improve an unborn child’s future quality of life.

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Our units

Our specialized units offer world-class prenatal diagnosis for fetal problems, with a high precision diagnosis and prognosis, and are linked to our fetal surgery program when therapy is required.

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Fetal Surgery and Therapy

We have long led the world in fetal surgery and continue to research and develop new techniques in our international fetal surgery program..

Fetal surgery referents

We are experts in fetal problems and every year thousands of families are referred to us, not only from the local area but also from around the world. In Spain, we are responsible for a relevant part of fetal surgeries performed.

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Comprehensive care from before birth

We are structured in multidisciplinary clinical units with fetal medicine and pediatric specialists to offer comprehensive counselling and care for a child before its birth and throughout its childhood. For instance, every year our Fetal Cardiology team, comprising fetal medicine and pediatric cardiologist specialists, take care of 200 babies with congenital heart defects that are prenatally diagnosed.

We continue with our patients after birth

The pediatric specialists and surgeons at SJD Barcelona Children’s Hospital are involved in our clinical units, which offer state-of the-art clinical care for all pediatric problems after birth. In our multidisciplinary Fetal Medicine Session, all complex cases are discussed by all relevant specialists to ensure that the maximum expertise informs decisions on management and therapy.

Quality Monitoring

At BCNatal's activity in the Women's Area of SJD Barcelona Children's Hospital, we work to provide healthcare based on scientific evidence, safety and quality, accompanied by the best experience for the mother and child.

Humaneness, knowledge and teamwork are the values helping us to achieve excellence in care. Participation of families in our work groups helps us to understand and meet their expectations.

Main features that characterize our centre

Pregnancy protocols
  • All our practice is performed according to protocols, which are updated every 3 years.
  • We have audit systems to ensure protocol adherence and reduce clinical variability.
  • Our protocols are an international reference. Accessible online in Spanish, they are consulted more than 60,000 times each month.
Clinical sessions to ensure better decision-making

We conduct several weekly clinical sessions and all important cases are discussed and analysed by a group of expert professionals.

Continuing training and simulation sessions

In addition to continuous training sessions, all professionals must attend simulation sessions once or twice a year to receive training in how to deal with rare emergency situations.

Quality and Safety Committee
  • This committee performs a continuous analysis of all safety incidents, complaints and quality indicators that are part of the Healthcare Quality Dashboard, with comparative evolution against previous years.
  • A newsletter is produced every 6 months.
  • Clinical safety cases are selected and presented to the service on a monthly basis to establish lines of work and improvement.
Fetal and perinatal mortality committee

A multidisciplinary committee issuing a report to affected families, with a final diagnosis and recommendations for future pregnancies if applicable.

Annual strategic plan

BCNatal professionals meet annually to assess how to improve clinical quality and patient care. This meeting sets out the yearly goals, lines of work and their indicators.

Research

The Institut de Recerca Sant Joan de Déu (IRSJD) boasts a research group into Foetal medicine and surgery: a multidisciplinary team associated with BCNatal-FMRC and the Universitat de Barcelona. Their goal is to identify early diagnostic and treatment methods for prenatal diseases.

At BCNatal’s we continuously search for answers to open questions about pregnancy and birth

  • With almost 100 researchers, BCNatal has one of the largest international scientific productions in the field of maternal-fetal medicine.
  • We have developed better and safer healthcare protocols, new diagnostic techniques and methods, and new treatments for the fetus.
  • We have tested and refined in our own practice most of the medical innovations and improvements that we offer our patients.
  • We publish over 70 scientific articles per year in prestigious peer-reviewed journals.
  • We continuously present our novel discoveries in international congresses. 

We perform our activity as part of the Women's Area of the SJD Barcelona Children's Hospital and the Hospital Clinic.

Our Professionals

“We offer highly specialised care that seamlessly integrates the most complex techniques in fetal medicine with a respectful birth.”

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Carolina Esteve Matanza
Obstetrician
Silvia Irene Ferrero Martínez
Obstetrician
Maria Edda Marimon García
Obstetrician
Edurne Mazarico Gallego
Obstetrician
Joan Sabrià Bach
Obstetrician
Míriam Illa Armengol
Obstetrician
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Maria Isabel García-Penche Santillán
Obstetrician
Mar Benassar Sans
Obstetrician and surgeon
Lluís Amat Tardiu
Gynaecologist
Santiago González Núñez
Gynaecologist
David Rodríguez Morante
Gynaecologist
Cristina Salvador Alarcón
Gynaecologist
Patrícia Pagès Alonso
Nurse
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Margarita García de Vicuña
Obstetric nurse
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Elena Gil Gil
Obstetric nurse

Teaching

In partnership with fetal I+D Education, BCNatal offers highly specialised courses both on site and online in the areas of obstetrics, gynaecology and fetal medicine.

At SJD Barcelona Children's Hospital, we have the Darwin Simulation Centre, where we give the course Advanced Simulation of Obstetric Emergencies.

Patient stories

“Thanks to the surgery at BCNatal - Sant Joan de Déu my little daughter Elsa had a much better chance of surviving her diaphragmatic hernia and today she is a healthy child full of life”

Ana Isabel mother of little Elsa, a diaphragmatic hernia patient from Ávila

"We put our son's life in their hands with absolute confidence because of their experience and research. Thanks to the team at the Hospital, which we visit regularly, we can say that our son is cured. The research, the fact of forming a parent-doctor team, the determination and confidence that they always conveyed to us, have made Daniel's a success story.”

Alejandra Vázquez Daniel´s mother

"We thought that once Ian was born, Laia would be born straight after, but that wasn’t the case. It was nine days later! I wanted us all to be together as soon as possible, but I realised that every minute she spent in my womb was very important for her. Laia was born stronger and didn’t need respiratory support”.

Laura mother of twins born by delayed-interval delivery