Neonatal unit is ready for anything, thanks to improvements
By LAUREN ROMANO
VIEW STAFF WRITER
DALE DOMBROWSKI/VIEWNikki Akimseu gets her first look at her son Eli in the neonatal intensive care unit at St. Rose Dominican Hospitals Siena Campus, Feb. 4. The Siena Campus offers the highest level of neonatal treatment available with its new Level III neonatal intensive care unit.
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Giving birth to her third son should have been old hat for Nikki Akimseu, but with more than a month left before her due date, it was a new experience.
At 7:26 a.m. Feb. 4. Akimseu and her husband welcomed Eli to the St. Rose Dominican Hospitals Siena Campus' new Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
Any baby born earlier than four weeks is brought to the NICU for monitoring.
The Siena Campus at 3001 St. Rose Parkway opened with a Level II NICU, which could care for babies born at 3 pounds or more. The upgrade to Level III means that preterm babies do not need to be transported to other hospitals, no matter how little they weigh.
"Except for cardiac surgery, there is not anything we're not ready for," said Barbara Gunn, NICU manager.
Cardiac surgery newborns in the valley are sent to Sunrise Hospital, 3186 S. Maryland Parkway.
Gunn said the smallest baby she has cared for at the Siena Campus was 3 pounds because any newborn that weighed less had to be transported to another hospital in the past. She said that in her 22 years as a NICU nurse, the smallest baby she worked with was born at 11 ounces.
The Siena Campus is the only hospital to have a Level III NICU in Henderson. Gunn said the closest Level III is "10 long miles away."
The new NICU is licensed for 15 babies, double what it had with the Level II. Each baby has a self-contained Giraffe omni-bed, which converts from an incubator to a bed warmer to a crib. Even X-rays can be taken in the bed.
The only reason to move a baby from the omni-bed is for neonatal surgery.
"If you have a really small baby, you don't want to move him around a lot because he desaturates," said Angie Sganga, director of maternal child and the NICU.
Desaturation is when a newborn does not get the oxygen it needs.
Gunn said the "Bentley of baby beds" recreates the womb for the newborn.
Eli, who was in an open omni-bed, weighed 5 pounds at birth and is considered a big baby in the NICU. He should leave in about a week, nurses said. Most preemies stay in the unit until their original due date, which could be months.
"It takes as long to grow outside the mom as inside," Gunn said.
The NICU also is designed to allow babies and mothers to stay close. "There is enough room by each bedside for bonding," Sganga said.
Premature and critically ill newborns who suffer from respiratory distress, cardiac disease, congenital anomalies, multi-system organ failure and other problems can be treated on site by 24-hour specially trained and certified neonatal nurses, respiratory therapists, neonatal surgeons and neonatal specialists.
"Everyone's awesome here," Akimseu said. "We don't have medical insurance this time around, but we decided to come back because of the staff."
The Siena Campus has been working for about a year and a half to upgrade the NICU. The Level III until opened in January.
"This was the goal," Gunn said. "We prepare for the worst and pray for the best."
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