Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU)
In our NICUs, we provide highly specialized care for your critically ill newborn. Our Neonatal intensive care unit is one of the best staffed and well-equipped units in the country. Our expert team of medical professionals, neonatologists, and nurses are available 24×7 to provide extensive care for your newborn.
We have the level-3 Neonatal Intensive Care Unit which is equipped to save the smallest and the sickest newborn babies. Level 3, is the most comprehensive type of NICU setup, which can manage neonates with complex problems.
The following is a list of facilities available in our setup:
Presence of a consultant at the hospital 24×7
A range of ventilators to provide conventional and advanced type of respiratory support
Availability of inhaled nitric oxide Total body servo cooling facility for neonatal Hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy (HIE), Ultrasound and functional echocardiography Dedicated neurodevelopmental follow-up and rehabilitation services. Our empathetic and highly trained neonatologists, pediatric surgeons, and nurses help take care of the newborn, giving parents joy by sending them home healthy.
Can I have contact with my baby in the NICU?
Parents are usually welcome in the NICU 24 hours a day, but other visitors may be limited. Remember, babies in the NICU can get very sick if they catch an infection. If you or someone you have contact with has been ill, talk to the medical staff before you come on to the ward.
Bonding with your baby and helping to care for them will help them get well. NICU staff will include you wherever possible in your baby’s care, and will teach you how to look after your baby. This may include how to change nappies, take the baby’s temperature, and how to bathe, feed and cuddle them.
You may be able to provide ‘kangaroo care’, or skin-to-skin care, with your baby. Holding your baby next to your skin is helpful for both parents and babies. For example, it helps to regulate your baby’s body temperature, heart rate and breathing rate. It can also help them gain weight and can improve your breast milk production.
Kangaroo care is not suitable for all babies, so ask the NICU staff. Even if your baby is not well enough for kangaroo care, you can still comfort them by stroking them, letting them hold your finger or by talking and singing to them.
How do I feed my baby in the NICU?
Many babies in the NICU may not be able to breastfeed at first. They will feed through a tube in their nose that carries the milk straight to their stomach (called ‘gavage feeding’).
The NICU staff may ask you to express breast milk to feed your baby. Your breast milk may be stored in the fridge or frozen to use later. Expressing milk will keep up your milk supply so you are able to breastfeed if/when you and your baby are ready.