More hospitals stop sending birth announcements

Seven more hospitals in Iowa are dropping the practice of releasing the names of newborn babies to radio stations and newspapers. Officials at hospitals in Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, Waterloo and Mason City won’t give out the names any more. Mercy Hospital in Oelwein recently joined the growing trend and Administrator Richard Schrupp says it’s a privacy and security issue as there’ve been cases nationwide of babies being stolen, or patients homes being burglarized.The hospitals that’ve stopped giving out birth announcements are: Mercy and St. Lukes in Cedar Rapids; University and Mercy in Iowa City, Allen and Covenant in Waterloo; and Mercy in Mason City. The two largest hospitals in Des Moines, Iowa Methodist Medical Center and Mercy Medical Center, still release the birth information to the media. DeAnn Cook is the Media Relations Manager at Methodist. She says they examined the policy, but decided to keep giving out the birth announcements if the parents approve.Cook says they did change their policy so only the names of the parents, and not their address is released.