Neonatal Care
Compassionate Care for the Most Vulnerable Among Us
We have a long history of caring for premature and sick newborns at our neonatal care units. When a child is born too early or experiences health complications, they require gentle, careful care to restore them to a healthy condition. Our neonatal units have been providing this care for decades and continue to provide dedicated, cutting-edge treatment to these vulnerable children.
What Are Neonatal Services?
When children are born prematurely or experience some form of distress in the childbirth process, they become particularly vulnerable to further health complications. Vigilant, dedicated care is needed to stabilize the health of these children so that they can rejoin their families and embark on the first stages of life at home.
Our neonatal care services include:
- Nitric oxide treatment
- Neonatal transport team
- Jet and oscillatory ventilation
- Regional Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)/Apnea program
- Parent teaching program and counseling
Neonatal Intensive Care Units
When a premature infant enters the world at one of our hospitals, he or she immediately receives medical care by an attending neonatologist in the delivery room and later in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).
At our facilities, there are neonatologists in-house at all times, ready to deliver the best possible medical care for your newborn child. Patients in the NICU require 1:1 or 1:2 nursing care. Promoting family centered care is a top priority. As a result, the survival rate of the smallest and sickest babies is high and the morbidity rate is low compared to national and international data.
There are many reasons why a child may need NICU care. They may have been diagnosed with any of the following medical conditions requiring an advanced level of monitoring and or intervention:
- Prematurity
- Respiratory distress
- Transient Tachypnea of the newborn
- Anoxic brain injury
- Complications associated with meconium aspiration
- Persistent pulmonary hypertension
- Hyperbilirubinemia
- Infectious processes
- Neural tube defects
- Congenital anomalies
Under the direction of dual board-certified neonatologists and staffed by specialized neonatal intensive care nurses, our NICU teams work together to meet the common goal of providing safe, quality care. Specialists in other pediatric subspecialties are available for prompt consultation and care, as are physical therapists, social workers, respiratory therapists, and pharmacists. Parents are encouraged to participate in their baby's care.
Support for Families with Newborn Babies in the NICU
During your child’s time in the NICU at any of our New Jersey hospitals, a team of social workers will meet with each NICU family and offer a variety of family-centered programming, including a NICU Support Group.
It's difficult to see your child struggle in their first days and weeks of life and our social workers are ready to work with these families to ensure that they have the support they need at this critical time. We have treated and nurtured countless fragile newborns over the years and knows what it takes to help them thrive.
Following discharge, high-risk NICU babies are seen on an outpatient basis by the neonatologists in the High-Risk Infant Follow-Up Program. A developmental psychologist is also on staff for follow-up of overall developmental status.