On Monday, the ward said goodbye to five familiar faces, who were already nurses and had been undertaking their post-graduate studies in midwifery, and welcomed six new midwives-to-be.

Maternity unit manager Colleen Paech said five of the six new student midwives were from Wagga, and the sixth had links to the area, so she was hoping at least some of them would want to remain at the Base Hospital after their year of study was completed.

Ms Paech said each of the new midwifes would be taking on the care of 10 women, following their progress through their pregnancies, deliveries and post-partum period.

Being involved in this program was extremely popular with pregnant women, she said.

The Wagga Base Hospital maternity ward is increasingly busy and now average about 100 deliveries every month.

April set a hospital record of 111 deliveries