Louis Weinstein, chief of obstetrics at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, has a message for women getting prenatal care at the soon-to-be-closed Northeastern Hospital: Come on down.

Weinstein says he has room for several hundred more pregnant patients.

Farther north, Albert Einstein Medical Center just finished an expansion of its maternity facilities and also says it has room for more patients. Pennsylvania Hospital can handle more deliveries.

The three hospitals are evidence that even in a region that has lost 17 maternity units since 1997 - victims, hospitals say, of poor funding and high malpractice costs - there are still some welcoming beds for women in labor.

That's not to say the other hospitals are as convenient as Northeastern for women who live near Port Richmond or that getting prenatal care will be hassle-free. Jefferson, for one, doesn't take all Medicaid insurance plans, though Weinstein said the hospital helps patients switch.

Letty Thall, public policy director for the Maternity Care Coalition, said the trend toward fewer places to deliver babies was still worrisome. "I think we are coming to the point where it is a public health emergency," she said.

The Temple University Health System announced Monday that it would close inpatient beds at Northeastern, which delivers about 1,800 babies a year, by July 1. The system will keep providing outpatient services, including prenatal care, at the building.

Northeastern's chief executive officer, John Buckley, said Temple expected 64 percent of the Northeastern deliveries to shift to Temple. The North Philadelphia hospital can take all of the Northeastern births, if necessary. He said he expected that many patients would choose other hospitals, including Jefferson and Pennsylvania in Center City.

"We easily have capacity for 300 to 500 patients," said Weinstein, whose hospital has been delivering about 2,100 babies a year.

"We would be more than happy to see as many of these patients as we can."

Einstein recently completed a $10-million maternity expansion project that should increase capacity and efficiency, said Arnold Cohen, chairman of obstetrics and gynecology. The hospital can now deliver about 3,300 babies a year, up from 3,000. Cohen said Einstein was looking at how it could increase prenatal care in the neighborhoods served by Northeastern. "It's easier if they can get their prenatal care closer to home," he said. "They come once to the hospital."

Harish Sehdev, vice chairman of ob-gyn at Pennsylvania Hospital, said his hospital, which is on track to deliver 4,700 to 4,800 babies this year, recently added two labor and delivery rooms. It could probably handle another 400 deliveries, he said, but it's hard to predict what any given day will be like.

Babies don't arrive in nice, even waves. "You're dealing with ebbs and flows," he said.