The suite life of luxury birthing centres

Nine months before power couple Upasana Kamineni Konidela and Ram Charan welcomed their first child, Konidela conceived another project. It was the creation of a birthing suite in the international wing of Apollo Health City in Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad. And to create this calming space, Mumbai-based Pavitra Rajaram, creative director of Pavitra Rajaram Design, was put in charge.

“I wanted to deliver in an atmosphere that was [like] a hotel and had the luxuries of home, while being in a hospital,” says Konidela, the founder of URLife, an all-in-one wellness platform. “Then I said, why only me? I think all women should have that experience.”

The result was a set of luxury birthing suites—soon to be a floor at the Apollo Hospital—which opened in June 2023. There was also a knock-on effect with the creation of a boutique hospital, Apollo Cradle Royale, in South Delhi in October 2023.

Luxury facilities for birthing and new mothers are currently having a moment. Mommy hotels, inspired from the Korean joriwon or postpartum care centres, are trending internationally. Doulas, jhapas, lactation consultants, postpartum menus, boutique hospitals, and sleep trainers have all entered the conversation. The usual six weeks of post-natal care is being questioned after a study published earlier this year in Lancet Global Health highlighted that a third of women who give birth suffer long-term postpartum effects that are not addressed. 

With freebirthing and home birthing on the rise in the US, the renaissance of home health, a reluctance to go to hospitals, and the high expectations consumers now have of healthcare were some of the talking points to emerge from the 2023 Forbes Healthcare Summit. “Conscious birthing has become a thing,” says couples’ and family therapist and relationship coach, Dr Sujata Ameya. “I don’t think the birthing process was ever truly understood by the medical fraternity. It was treated on par with being an abnormality or an illness. It became an extremely impersonal, clinical, cold, and very traumatic situation for the mother and the new-born. Whereas birthing is a very significant, intimate, and personally transformative experience for the woman.”

Shruti Mehndroo, 32, vice president-finance at Liberty Mutual Insurance, who gave birth at Delhi’s Apollo Cradle Royale in May, says that one of the main things that has changed over the past five years is the focus on the mother and the clarity women now have about their birthing experience. Her list of requirements was short and clear: any hospital she chose would have to be totally patient-centric and they would have to provide a bouquet of facilities pre-birth and postpartum, including exercises and post-delivery classes. It also needed to address her social needs. “I knew I would have a lot of friends and family coming to visit and I wanted to have facilities where they could be entertained properly, where I could have my own space, and both could be taken care of.”

For Rajaram, the decision to create the suites in Hyderabad came from a shift in how people are viewing health and hospitals. “People want empathetic healthcare, built around their wants, needs, and expectations.” This was an opportunity to design spaces around the experiences that people have at the time of a woman giving birth, including the steady stream of visitors, the mother’s need for privacy, and the caregiver’s need for rest as well as the ability to watch over their partner and child. “There are times when you want to bond with your partner and when you want to be alone with the baby. There’s a need for space for both. There are also people coming to visit the parents and the baby, and where do these people go, sit, stay? The idea was to make it a very holistic, experience-led design project that met all hospital and medical norms,” says Rajaram.

Her solution was to design a 1,200sq ft home-like suite, one that would not be out of place in a luxury hotel, and provided pools of privacy. The most private is the patient’s room, in which all technology is discreetly tucked away behind panels; nearby is a nurse’s station. Then comes the partner or carer’s room, which has a viewing window to check in on the mother. On the opposite side, so as not to encroach on the mother’s space, are the public areas: the dining and living room, the latter a large space to accommodate visitors. A spa-style bathroom and a powder room finish off the suite. A palette of white, luxurious linens, screens to block light from the nurse’s station, and a wall of windows create a sense of serenity and sanctuary.

At both the Delhi and Hyderabad centres, hotel-trained chefs provide a customised menu, there’s a round-the-clock dedicated nurse, and, in Hyderabad, a dedicated doctor for the mother. Partners are allowed in the operating theatre. A baby shower, documentation of the birth and photographs with and of the newborn, and even candlelit dinners are part of the experience.

Delhi-based Tanisha Mehta, 37, picked Apollo Cradle Royale because “pregnancy is a fun journey. I didn’t want to make it depressing by going to a hospital, being admitted, feeling unwell, or worrying about infections the baby might catch. Complete privacy was another non-negotiable, so it helped that the suite had two separate entrances, one for the medical and care staff and the other for guests, which afforded her complete privacy.

She remembers her post-delivery candlelit dinner as a special occasion for her and her husband to really marvel at the whole experience of being parents. “I’d laughed it off initially, thinking that after a C-section, I’d be lying in bed and wouldn’t be able to enjoy the dinner. It turned out to be one of the best parts.”

It’s clear that the urban birthing experience is feeling the winds of change, and not a moment too soon. The suite Konidela used has proven so popular, it is being requested not only by expecting mothers, but also people checking in for other surgeries. Rajaram, too, is hoping to extend her design vision by working on a new hospital in Hyderabad.

“Childbirth is as important or more important than a wedding,” says Konidela. “People think of it as routine, but you don’t know what women go through to get pregnant, during their pregnancy, and during postpartum. So I think that more than a wedding, having a baby should be celebrated.”