Watsonville Community Hospital NICU remains closed, adding anxiety for expecting families

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For Nora Yerena, the Watsonville Community Hospital neonatal intensive care unit closure is personal.

As a doula and co-founder of Watsonville-based nonprofit Raíces y Cariño, Yerena works with parents throughout the Pajaro Valley as they prepare to give birth. She also knows firsthand what it is like to have a newborn transferred to a hospital outside the area for higher-level care: One of her children spent time in a NICU before Watsonville’s unit closed, forcing her family to travel nearly 45 minutes to visit their baby.

“Leaving the baby every day was the worst day of my life,” she said. 

Now, with Watsonville Community Hospital’s intensive care nursery surpassing its two-month mark of closure, Yerena told Lookout that she’s hearing from expectant mothers who are considering giving birth elsewhere – at Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz or Natividad Medical Center in Salinas – because those hospitals have NICUs available in case of an emergency. 

For families who continue to plan to give birth in Watsonville, the closure adds another layer of uncertainty and stress, Yerena said.

“It’s a looming anxiety,” she said. “You’re already facing these other layers of stress, and the chronic stress of being many of the mothers that are giving birth at Watsonville Community Hospital.”

The hospital’s intensive care nursery, which functions as the neonatal intensive care unit, has been closed since mid-July because of a shortage of nursing staff in the labor and delivery unit, according to interim CEO Tim Moran. The hospital has not set a date for reopening the unit.

NICUs are ranked by level of care, similar to trauma centers. Watsonville’s is a Level II unit, providing intermediate care to babies born at 32 weeks old or later who may have mild breathing and feeding problems, and stabilizing more premature infants (born before 32 weeks) before transferring them to a high-level hospital.

The closure is having an impact beyond where families give birth, Yerena said. For some parents, it creates another source of stress during an already demanding pregnancy. For others, the decision to deliver elsewhere might mean additional travel, logistical challenges and separation from family support.

“It’s just heartbreaking,” Yerena said. 

Yerena’s organization provides services including parent support groups and prenatal classes, and is home to the Tri-County Doula Hub. 

As a doula herself, Yerena is on the front lines, connecting with parents getting ready to welcome a new baby into their families. Her main priority is ensuring that families feel supported throughout the pregnancy journey. 

While not medical professionals, doulas complement a mother’s health team by providing physical and emotional support to the families they work with. This includes creating a safe space to have conversations about what to do if their baby needs a health assessment, or making the decision on where to give birth. 

Dominican in Santa Cruz and Natividad in Salinas have Level III NICUs, which are equipped to handle more critical cases and babies born before 32 weeks. Both facilities have patient-transfer agreements with Watsonville Community Hospital. 

However, while there are parents opting to give birth at other hospitals in the region, there are still a lot of families who don’t have that choice. 

Yerena told Lookout that families still choosing to give birth at Watsonville Community Hospital understand the risks of their decisions, which adds another layer of stress. 

Studies have shown that stress can be associated with premature birth (before 37 weeks), postpartum depression, anxiety and fetal distress. Many of the women who give birth at Watsonville Community Hospital already see an “unbelievable amount of stress and hardship” from their jobs, often in agriculture or service industries or taking care of their families, said Yerena. 

And it leads to a ripple effect, Yerena added, ultimately increasing the likelihood of medical intervention and a potential NICU stay. “It’s all related,” she said. “It all is intertwined together.” 

“Now, we’re adding on this layer of ‘What if my baby needs some hospital care after birth? What if they need the NICU? My baby is going to be taken over to where?’” Yerena said. 

Mothers with infants in the NICU experience higher rates of postpartum depression than women who give birth to healthy babies. Parents in this position tend to be separated from their babies, and a stay in the NICU can often disrupt opportunities for much-needed time between a mother and her baby, which can be stressful — both physically and emotionally. 

Sandra Morioka, a retired NICU nurse at Watsonville Community Hospital, told Lookout that the ongoing closure has created challenges for families, especially those with fewer resources, to travel to visit their baby in a hospital outside of Watsonville. 

“You’re talking three hours a day going back and forth, and taking care of family, kids here that they have to manage,” Morioka said. “That’s a big commitment that you have to do.”

What typically helps families needing the NICU, said Yerena, is supporting the parents and creating a space where they can be with their baby by setting up a chair or finding a place to rest. 

Babies end up leaving the NICU sooner when the baby and parents are together, Yerena said. “They get healthy faster. They need less interventions and the rates of postpartum and anxiety disorders go down,” she said. 

The NICU closure also brings up another concern for Yerena: the hospital’s sustainability. 

“If we have a whole bunch of people who are choosing not to give birth [at WCH], that’s additional revenue that’s not coming to the hospital,” Yerena said.

Roughly 31% of babies born in Santa Cruz County are delivered at Watsonville Community Hospital, just ahead of Dominican Hospital’s 29%. On average, the hospital delivers 60 babies per month, and in July, it reported 70 deliveries. 

Morioka, who attended a rally in late August to protest against the NICU closure, said “it’s really critical” to have the unit because “you never know when you’re going to get someone coming in that needs emergency care.” 

Moran told Lookout via email that the hospital’s primary concern is the safety of the mothers, not patient volume. Any baby delivered at the hospital is assessed by a pediatrician from Stanford University’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital to determine “where the baby can receive the necessary care.” 

If a baby is in “an acute stage of distress,” Moran said the hospital would be calling for a helicopter transfer out, and added that this situation is rare. 

“It’s sad for us because we know we could take care of a lot of those babies,” Morioka said. “And here at Watsonville Community Hospital, with all of our specialized doctors, with our expertise, we could do it here at home.” 

Moran told Lookout that there isn’t a timeline for when the unit will reopen. 

Lisa Whitney, labor and delivery charge nurse, said it’s frustrating that hospital leadership hasn’t shared a reopening timeline with them. She joined Morioka and dozens of other nurses and community members at last month’s rally to pressure Moran and other hospital leaders to open the NICU again. 

The lack of a timeline also makes nurses like Whitney suspect there might be a permanent closure in the future, even though hospital leadership says the closure is temporary. 

“All we’ve heard is that there’s no plan for a permanent closure, and it will open once there is stabilized staffing,” said Whitney. “So, what is the plan for that?” 

At last week’s special hospital board meeting, staff shared that outright closures of both the NICU and labor and delivery units are a possible solution to ensuring the facility stays open. 

Hospital Chief Financial Officer Julie Peterson told the hospital board that the NICU loses about $53,000 a day, or close to $2 million a year. She also added that patient volumes in both units have decreased in 2026.

“We have been evaluating and hearing all the comments on patient and community impact,” said Peterson. “We do acknowledge that it will be a challenge to maintain any kind of positive community relations with a decision such as this.” 

No formal proposal to permanently close both units has been presented to the hospital board. 

As the temporary closure continues, Yerena said she has many concerns, primarily the immediate effects on babies and mothers in the community.

“We know that if a parent, and most specifically the birthing parent’s mental health is not doing well, the baby’s health is also compromised,” she said. To ensure that our community’s babies are thriving, they need to have healthy parents, Yerena said. 

But Yerena said she also wonders about the hospitals where babies are being transferred to, and what impacts that might have on those facilities. If parents are choosing to give birth elsewhere, it possibly could overwhelm other facilities. 

Nurses at last month’s rally also echoed similar sentiments and called the temporary closure a “slippery slope” that could lead to a gap in care for some of the most vulnerable populations and potentially cause maternal deserts — areas that lack maternal healthcare. 

“It will just continue to impact the care,” Yerena said. 

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