WORK to create Huddersfield’s new family birth centre starts today.

The 17-week project to revamp Ward 14 at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary was getting under way today – more than a year after the project was finally given the go-ahead.

And it will set the scene for mums to give birth in a calm, contemporary ‘home from home’ from next February.

The unit – to be staffed by midwives only – will be made up of six individual birth rooms with en-suite facilities.

The rooms will be equipped with roll-out double beds, to allow partners the chance to stay overnight for the first time.

Women classed as low risk will be able to give birth there, using two water-birth pools and holistic therapies, including reflexology, aromatherapy and massage, to help them during labour.

The unit will also feature a communal kitchen, dining facilities, a prayer room and a resuscitation area for mums and babies.

The centre’s manager, Gina Augarde, said: “Staff on the ward will do their utmost to make sure that disruption is kept to a minimum.

“We ask members of the public to bear with us while work is in progress.”

A new ante-natal triage area to replace care previously given in Ward 14 has been set up while the work is carried out.

The area will allow women to be assessed to decide whether they should be admitted or sent home. Beds in Ward 14 will be for women needing further checks or monitoring only.

HRI has also extended the opening hours of its ante-natal unit while work is in progress.

All this work is being supported by the community midwifery team. Nine extra midwives have been recruited to work both in the hospital and in the community.

Once open, the new birth centre will run alongside the current maternity service at HRI for six months.

It will then ‘go it alone’, run by experienced and skilled midwives who will help women have their babies with minimal intervention.

Women needing consultant-led maternity care will have to give birth at the Calderdale Royal Hospital in Halifax.

The centre is part of the controversial plan to move many maternity services from Huddersfield to Halifax.

Tens of thousands of people objected to the proposals which were finally given the go-ahead by the then Health Minister, Patricia Hewitt.

Helen Thomson, director of nursing for Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the two hospitals, said: “This is an exciting development for the people of Huddersfield and we ask them to bear with us while the work takes place.

“It should not affect our service, but if there are busy periods and all the beds are full, women who need to be on a labour ward will be transferred to our other hospital and cared for there.”