Where Should I Deliver My Baby Near Aurora, Colorado? A Local Mom’s Guide
Once you find out you're pregnant, there are approximately 900 decisions you suddenly realize you're supposed to make.
One of the bigger ones is:
Where am I actually going to have this baby?
If you're pregnant in Aurora—especially southeast Aurora—you have several hospitals within a reasonable drive, and they aren't all the same.
I've personally delivered babies at two of them: AdventHealth Parker and Sky Ridge Medical Center. I had very different experiences at each. And after spending years talking with new parents in my newborn photography studio, I've realized there are things about choosing a hospital that I didn't even know to think about when I was pregnant.
So this isn't my ranking of Aurora-area hospitals, and I'm definitely not going to tell you where you should have your baby.
Think of this more like sitting down with another Aurora mom who has done this twice and saying, "Okay, what should I actually be looking at?"
First, Your OB May Help Decide Where You Deliver
This was one of those things I didn't completely understand the first time around.
You don't necessarily choose your OB and your hospital as two completely separate decisions. Your provider or practice may deliver at particular hospitals, so it's worth talking about your hospital preferences while you're choosing your prenatal care.
If you're still figuring that part out, I wrote a whole guide about how to find an OB-GYN in Aurora and the questions I wish I'd known to ask.
Insurance matters too. Before you fall in love with a hospital, check your actual coverage and talk with your provider and insurance company about where you can deliver.
Then you can start looking at the hospitals themselves.
AdventHealth Parker
AdventHealth Parker—what a lot of us around here still remember as Parker Adventist—is in Parker and has a dedicated birth center called The BirthPlace.
The hospital currently offers labor and delivery, newborn care and NICU services, and its maternity program includes access to neonatologists, perinatologists for high-risk consultations, and obstetric and anesthesia providers available around the clock.
And if you've driven by recently and thought, "What in the world are they building over there?"
You're not imagining it.
AdventHealth Parker is currently undergoing a major expansion. The hospital broke ground in 2025 on a seven-story tower that will add operating rooms, medical/surgical beds and other services. The hospital currently says it expects the first patient in the new tower in 2027.
My Experience at Parker
This is where we leave the hospital website and I just tell you about my experience.
I loved delivering at Parker.
It felt clean, and the people taking care of me were incredibly helpful and kind. I remember feeling very comfortable there, and that matters more to me looking back than I probably realized at the time.
And they had gelato.
Is gelato an important factor in choosing where you're going to receive medical care?
Absolutely not.
Do I still remember the gelato?
Absolutely yes.
That's also part of why I'm writing these guides this way. Hospital websites can tell you about NICU services and birth centers and medical capabilities. Sometimes another mom is going to tell you that the nurses were kind and there was gelato.
You probably want both kinds of information.
HCA HealthONE Sky Ridge
Sky Ridge is in Lone Tree, not Littleton—which I admittedly had mixed up myself for years.
The Birth Place at Sky Ridge offers both medicated and unmedicated birth options, C-sections, high-risk pregnancy care and doula services. Its current maternity information also lists childbirth classes and tours, lactation support, private recovery rooms with space for a partner to stay overnight, and a well-care nursery.
Sky Ridge also has a Level III NICU. According to the hospital, its NICU can care for very premature babies and includes private rooms as well as accommodations that allow parents to stay before bringing baby home.
My Experience at Sky Ridge
I also delivered a baby at Sky Ridge, and my personal experience there wasn't as positive as my experience at Parker.
The air felt incredibly dry to me. That's such a strangely specific thing to remember years later, but I remember it vividly.
More importantly, I had an issue after surgery and personally wished I'd had more attentive care at that time.
I want to be careful with that statement because this was my experience during one hospital stay. It doesn't tell you what your care would be like today, and it isn't me making a judgment about the hospital or its medical care overall.
But it did teach me something I would absolutely ask about now:
What does postpartum care look like after delivery—especially after a C-section or another procedure?
How often will someone check on you? Who do you contact when something doesn't feel right? What should you expect during recovery?
Those weren't questions I thought to ask before having a baby.
Now they would be.
Also, Sky Ridge gets credit where credit is due.
The food was amazing.
There was a red pepper soup that I still remember.
Apparently my hospital memories are roughly 50% childbirth and 50% food.
UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital at Anschutz
If you're in Aurora, there's another major option practically in our backyard: University of Colorado Hospital on the Anschutz Medical Campus.
I haven't personally delivered there, so I'm not going to pretend to give you a personal review.
What I can tell you is what they currently offer.
The University of Colorado Hospital Labor and Delivery Unit is located right here in Aurora and provides vaginal deliveries, C-sections, VBAC, high-risk labor and delivery, certified nurse-midwife care and maternal-fetal medicine specialists. UCHealth also currently offers water birth at University of Colorado Hospital for appropriate patients through its midwifery program.
The hospital has a Level III NICU and specialized care for complicated and high-risk pregnancies.
For someone interested in midwifery, that's worth knowing too. UCHealth has dedicated midwifery practices at Anschutz whose midwives deliver at University of Colorado Hospital.
This is a good example of why I wouldn't choose a hospital based only on whether someone else loved their room or their dinner.
Your pregnancy may give you completely different priorities than mine did.
So...How Do You Actually Choose?
This is where I think the question changes.
Instead of:
Which hospital is best?
I'd ask:
Which hospital makes sense for my pregnancy, my provider, my insurance and the things that matter to me?
Maybe you care enormously about having access to midwives.
Maybe you want a particular OB.
Maybe you're planning a VBAC.
Maybe having advanced newborn care available is important because of something happening during your pregnancy.
Maybe this is your fourth baby and your primary requirement is simply PLEASE DO NOT MAKE ME DRIVE AN HOUR WHILE I'M IN LABOR.
All legitimate considerations.
And some of the questions aren't medical at all.
Where does your partner sleep?
Can your older children visit?
What food is available at 2 a.m.?
Where do you park when you're in labor?
Which entrance do you use after hours?
Does baby stay in your room?
What does the hospital actually provide so you don't haul half of your house there?
Those little details become significantly less little when you're the one standing in a hospital lobby having contractions.
Take the Hospital Tour
If the hospital you're considering offers tours, I'd take one.
Not because you need to inspect every corner of the building.
You just want the place to feel a little less unfamiliar when you come back to have your baby.
Figure out where you're going. See a room if that's available. Ask where your support person sleeps. Find the entrance. Ask the questions that matter specifically to you.
And don't worry about whether they're "good" questions.
You're having a baby.
You're allowed to ask how the shower works.
I Made You a Checklist
After thinking about everything I didn't know to ask during my own pregnancies, I realized this needed something you could actually take with you.
So I made a Hospital Tour & Choosing Your Hospital Checklist for expecting parents.
It includes questions about labor and delivery, postpartum recovery, newborn care, NICU capabilities, support people, feeding support, parking, food, what happens after a C-section and all those practical little things that are very easy to forget when someone asks:
"Do you have any questions?"
You don't need to ask every single one.
Print it, circle what matters to you and take it along on your hospital tour or to your prenatal appointment.
One More Thing I Would Check
Distance.
Not just Google Maps at 11 a.m. on a Tuesday.
Think about traffic.
Think about snow.
Think about what the drive looks like from your house during rush hour.
If you're choosing between hospitals around Aurora, Parker and Lone Tree, ten or fifteen extra miles can feel very different depending on the time of day.
That doesn't mean you automatically choose whichever building is closest to you. It just means distance deserves a spot on the list along with everything else.
Questions I'd Ask Before Choosing a Hospital Today
If I were pregnant again, these are some of the things I'd want to know:
Does my OB or midwife deliver here?
Is the hospital in network with my insurance?
What kinds of deliveries and pain-management options are available?
What happens if I need a C-section?
What does postpartum monitoring look like?
What newborn and NICU care is available?
What happens if baby needs a higher level of care than the hospital provides?
What feeding and lactation support is available?
Can my support person stay overnight?
What does the hospital provide after delivery?
Are tours or childbirth classes available?
Where do we go when I'm actually in labor?
What happens if we arrive after hours?
How long does it realistically take us to get there from home?
And then I'd ask whatever matters specifically to me, even if it isn't on anybody else's checklist.
The Biggest Thing I Want You to Know
There probably isn't one universally "best" hospital to have a baby near Aurora.
There are hospitals with different services, different providers and different approaches. And then there are you and your baby, with your own medical needs, insurance, preferences and priorities.
I loved Parker.
My experience at Sky Ridge was different.
Someone else may tell you the exact opposite.
That's why I'd use other people's experiences as information—not as the decision itself.
Ask your provider. Tour the hospitals you're considering. Look at what each one currently offers. Check your insurance. Bring your questions.
And then choose from the information you have.
You're allowed to care about the really important medical stuff and whether your partner has somewhere remotely comfortable to sleep.
Both are going to matter at 3 a.m.
Key Takeaways
Choosing where to deliver your baby around Aurora isn't just about finding the hospital with the best reviews.
Start with your OB or midwife and your insurance. Then look at the hospital's current maternity services, newborn care, postpartum support and the things that matter specifically to your pregnancy.
If you can, take a tour before delivery.
And bring questions.
You don't need to know what you're supposed to ask yet.
That's exactly why I made you the checklist.
A Little About Me
I'm Jen. I'm a mom of two and a newborn photographer here in Aurora, Colorado. I've delivered babies at two of our local hospitals and now spend a pretty significant amount of my life around brand-new babies and the people who just brought them home.
I'm putting these Aurora pregnancy and baby guides together because there's a lot you don't know that you don't know the first time around.
I'm not your doctor, and I'm definitely not here to tell you how or where to have your baby.
I'm just another mom who lives here, has done some of this already, and is happy to tell you what I wish I'd known.
We'll figure out the tiny details as we go.
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