St. Louis Children’s Hosptial is home to one of the largest level IV newborn intensive care units in the nation, consistently recognized among the top programs by U.S. News & World Report . Our 150-bed unit, which is directly connected to high-risk labor and delivery at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, offers an extraordinary level of medical and nursing care supported by a dedicated team committed to the well-being of both our patients and their families. The strong partnerships with specialists at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine, all located on one medical campus, foster innovative research and care aimed at improving patient outcomes. Learn more about the specialized services, programs and treatments offered at the St. Louis Children’s Hospital NICU.
Our NICU at Saint Louis Children's Hospital is a level four NI U. It's 100 and 50 beds. We're located on the Washington University Medical Campus in the heart of Saint Louis City. We are just a bridge away from our delivery center so that our fetal care patients and our extreme premature patients are just a short walk to a level four care. But we also have referrals across the region and we have a transport team that can fly or drive to bring sick patients from across the region to receive care here at our NICU. One of the most important things to recognize in our neonatal intensive care unit is that no one person delivers the care. The care is delivered as a team. Our unit is staffed by a large dedicated team of bedside nurses and support services. In addition to a multitude of pediatric subspecialists and pediatric surgeons. This in addition to cutting edge research right here on the medical campus and the latest technology allows us to take care of the smallest patients with the most complex conditions. We are one of the few centers in the US and the world to offer infant lung transplant. The most common reason for transplant referral are the genetic disorders of surfactant metabolism. However, we do receive referrals for infants with severe lung disease without clear explanation. Infants and their families who are waiting lung transplant are cared for in our NICU until the time of transplant. Recently, our NICU has developed a small bait program that improves the care for our smallest premature infants. We have a severe BPD program that is a multidisciplinary program between our pulmonary doctors, neonatology and cardiology to improve care. We also have a renal replacement therapy program for neonates with congenital renal anomaly or those who have acute and chronic renal failure secondary to their disease in the NICU oftentimes the care of our smallest patients happens even before they're born. Our fetal care center is a really unique collaboration across the medical campus between Barnes Jewish Hospital, ST Louis Children's Hospital and Washington University physicians. We're able to provide care to a mother and her unborn child up through delivery and beyond if needed, we are able to perform in utero procedures to improve the outcome including treatment for twin to twin transfusion syndrome in utero surgery for spina bifida, both open and fos scopic surgeries in utero for sacred coccygeal teratoma and exit procedures if needed for lymphatic malformations or airway malformations. Through our membership with the North American Fetal Therapy Network, we are able to provide our patients with cutting edge research and therapies through collaboration with a multitude of other NF net centers across the country including trials such as the RAF trial for renal failure in neonates. Our C DH program at ST Louis children's hospital starts before birth. Once a family has a diagnosis of C DH, they'll be referred to our fetal care center. Our C DH program has achieved survival of almost 90% over the last five years. In large part, I think due to the care provided at every step of the way for the patient and a much greater focus on the cardiovascular support of the C DH neonate. Now, even with all that support, around 25% of infants at our center will require ECMO, ECMO at our center is delivered very well because we're a platinum Center for Excellence for ECMO. So when we get to the point where we need this additional therapy, we have high fidelity ECMO care. Once we get through the NICU through this long journey with the family and the baby, they all follow in our C DH clinic. So we go from before birth through the entire hospital stay and then the same group of physicians will care for them in the outpatient world. In addition to patient care and education. Research is also paramount at Saint Louis Children's Hospital. There is an environment of inquiry and improvement and many of our NICU families participate in research studies. Research has the potential to not only help infants in our own NICU but also beyond Washington University is one of the clinical sites and model organism screening course for the undiagnosed diseases network or UVN. When an in our NICU is suspected of having an underlying genetic condition and the whole genome sequencing is not diagnostic. We are able to enroll infants in their families in the UDN. Here at Washington University. Our infants are able to receive cutting edge genomic technologies including transcript omics, long read RN A and DNA sequencing, as well as in vitro and model organism studies to try to identify the molecular cause of their condition. Um I'm always so impressed by the resilience of infants and their families and it's truly a privilege to help infants thrive and support their families along their journey. In the NICU. Our team of doctors, nurses and staff come to work each day knowing that we can improve lives and outcomes of our tiniest patients. What keeps us going each day is working with people side by side that care truly about their patients and their families. Our nurses are at the bedside for 12 hours a day, caring for critically ill infants and all of this work that they do makes a difference.
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