LAURINBURG — In the Labor and Delivery Department at Scotland Memorial Hospital, a red button is mounted on the wall, with a beautifully scripted poem above it.

As each new mother leaves Labor & Delivery for the Mother-Baby Unit, she stops to push the button to announce her baby to the world. When she does, the gentle notes of the traditional lullaby chime throughout the hospital corridors. The snippet of Brahms’ Lullaby plays over the PA system for about 18 seconds.

“It a small way for our new moms and dads to announce their child is born,” said Miki Glass, director of Women’s Services.

Staff, patients and visitors say they often stop what they are doing and are momentarily uplifted as they are reminded of the cycle of life.

“No matter what kind of day you are having, when you hear that lullaby it just lifts your spirit and we hear people say, Aww, another baby was just born,” Glass said.

If the lullaby plays twice consecutively, well, that means only one thing: twins were just born.

Recently Dr. Jennifer Locklear, a family medicine physician, and her husband Darryl, pressed the button to announce the births of their twins. Daughter Ainsley and son Anakin were born on a recent Tuesday afternoon. Following recovery, Dr. Locklear was moved to a room in the Mother-Baby Unit.

As the couple passed the button, they pressed it twice so that the lullaby could play once for Ainsley and once for Anakin.

Funding for the installation of the Cotronix system was provided by Scotland Health Care System’s Volunteer Auxiliary.

About 200 hospitals nationwide have installed the lullaby button, according to Craig Olson, owner of Cotronix, the Minnesota-based company that provides the system.

Olson was working for a hospital in Wisconsin about 10 years ago that came up with the idea, and it took off from there, he said.