Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU)
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Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU)
MeritCare Children's NICU is the leading medical facility in the region providing neonatal intensive care. Located just a few steps from the MeritCare Family Birth Center, our NICU has state-of-the-art equipment and neonatal specialists with extensive training and expertise in caring for babies born with life-threatening conditions. The NICU has 33 beds and cares for more than 400 infants per year.
Opened in 1970, the NICU has achieved infant survival rates at the top of nationwide statistics (Vermont Oxford Quality Network). The new NICU will enhance this care. Our Neonatal Intensive Care Unit was designed specifically for newborns who require constant nursing care, complicated surgical procedures, continuous respiratory support or other intensive medical care. Our neonatologists, neonatal nurse practitioners, respiratory therapists and nurses who specialize in neonatology provide care that is in the top 25 percent of all hospitals nationwide.
The new NICU design is one of the most advanced in the nation. Its pod-design structure provides more privacy for families and individual space for caregivers to focus on your baby. The new advanced monitoring system allows your baby's care team to constantly be aware of their vitals from anywhere in the NICU. Lower light and sound environments are also important in the new NICU. Studies of environment settings like ours demonstrate longer and higher quality sleep, decreased stress responses, greater psychological stability, better feeding rhythms, quality of movement and increased average daily weight gain.
Thirty-to-forty percent of the babies admitted are transferred from other hospitals across the region. MeritCare Children's Hospital NICU offers advanced services not often found at other hospitals and we are proud to partner with these hospitals to ensure high quality medical care across the region. If your infant needs highly specialized neonatal care, before you head out of state consider MeritCare.