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Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU)

Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU)


Good Samaritan Family Birthing Center Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU)

Overview

The Good Samaritan NICU is a 10 bed, state-of-the-art facility, which provides the specialized, multidisciplinary special care services for infants as young as 30 weeks and as small as 2 1/2lbs. at birth. The NICU is equipped to provide care for a range of newborn critical illnesses, including respiratory, infectious, hematological, neurological, genetic, and metabolic disorders.

A neonatologist, a physician with training and expertise to treat sick newborns and premature infants, provides and supervises the care in the NICU. At Good Samaritan, a Neonatologist, Nurse Practitioner, or Physician’s Assistant is in the hospital with a neonatal attending as back up 24 hours-a-day, 7 days-a-week, to attend to all high-risk deliveries, provide medical care and support to infants and their families and bring the most current information and care to the bedside. These dedicated physicians are board certified in the field of pediatrics and neonatology.

Skilled and professional neonatal nurses, with specialized training in caring for sick newborns and premature babies, who provide around-the-clock nursing care. Sub-specialists in various fields of pediatrics, such as surgery, cardiology, neurology, hematology, gastroenterology, pulmonology, as well as infectious disease and follow-up are available to assist in providing care for the NICU patients.

Care in the NICU

We use the most current and evidence based practice as well as advanced technology to provide optimal care for your infant.

  • Convertible Open Bed Warmers/Incubators:
    • These are a sophisticated piece of equipment that allows an infant open bed to convert from an open warmer (for easier infant observation and monitoring) to a closed incubator.
  • Respiratory Support:
    • We provide infants with the respiratory support they need, for their condition including conventional mechanical ventilation and non-invasive ventilation.
  • Nutritional Support:
    • Maximizing nutritional support for sick infants is a cornerstone of the care we deliver in the NICU. It is also crucial for their growth and development.
    • We encourage and support moms to breast feed or pump breast milk for their infant if their baby is too premature or ill to breast feed.
    • Every NICU nurse is trained to offer lactation support and we have full time lactation consultants available to these moms.
    • We work to equally support the families of formula fed infants.
  • Developmental Care:
    • One important care initiative we promote is skin to skin care where the infant is placed skin to skin on mom’s chest immediately after birth and during the immediate post birth recovery period. This important time enhances the parent/infant bonding, enhances newborn transition immediately post birth, helps with the milk supply of breast feeding moms, as well as a number of other benefits for both mom and baby.
    • We also support, teach and model Safe Sleep positioning & initiatives.

Our NICU Team

The following are some of the specially trained health care professionals who will be involved in the care of your baby:

  • Neonatologists
  • Nurses - NICU
  • Nurse Practitioners -- NICU
  • Respiratory therapists
  • Occupational therapists
  • Dietitians
  • Lactation consultants
  • Pharmacists
  • Social workers
  • Hospital chaplains

The members of the NICU team work together with parents to develop a plan of care for high-risk newborns.

Martin Katzenstein, MD, is Chief of Service and Director of Neonatology at Good Samaritan Hospital. He is also an Attending Neonatologist at Westchester Medical Center, Associate Professor of Pediatrics of New York Medical College (NYMC) SOM and Director of Community Alliances for Boston Children's Health Physicians. He was recently appointed Assistant Dean for Clinical Affiliations by NYMC. In this new role, Dr. Katzenstein will assist with the development of new and established medical student clinical affiliate site rotations at the varied hospitals and ambulatory centers, physician practices and outpatient preceptor sites.

Support for Families

Having a baby in the NICU can be stressful for families. We encourage parents to partner with their baby’s health care team and be an active part of their baby’s care. Parents and siblings 4 years and older are welcome in the NICU 24 hours a day. We encourage parents to be present for daily rounds, to actively participate and ask questions as well as help set goals for their baby every day.

The NICU has parents identify who their important family or friends may be, these key individuals are then welcomed in to the NICU long with the parent to visit participate in the care and comfort that is being delivered to their infant. This can be providing soothing touch, holding the infant, reading to the infant or just being present to provide additional support for the family.

Our social worker also meets with families and provides needed resources as well as is available for consults or care conferences.