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Neonatal Unit

What is a Neonatal Unit?

A Neonatal Unit looks after babies who are born early and those babies who are unwell at birth.

Our Neonatal Unit

Babies born prematurely (before 35 weeks gestation or more than 5 weeks early) or those that are unwell at birth, are admitted to the Neonatal Unit and looked after by Paediatric Doctors and Neonatal Nurses.

This can be a stressful time for any family and so our staff aim to inform and help them to look after their baby during their stay. Parents and siblings are supported so that they can visit their baby as much as they want to and to provide the care their baby needs until they are ready to be discharged to their home. We have two family rooms available for parents to stay in during the time that their baby is on the Neonatal Unit. Once ready to go home our Neonatal Community team are available to support the family.

We have twelve cot spaces available for those babies needing intensive care, high dependency care and special care.

Our unit is classified as a Local Neonatal Unit within the Eastern Neonatal Network. This means that our staff work with other medical and nursing staff within the Eastern region to provide the right care as close to the baby and family’s home as possible. If a baby is born before 27 weeks (more than 13 weeks early), or needs intensive care for a long time or an operation, then the Acute Neonatal Transport Service will help to transfer the baby to another hospital that provides more intensive and surgical care. The Eastern Neonatal Network will try and ensure that this is at Norwich, Cambridge or Luton and Dunstable.

The Paediatric and Neonatal team work with our maternity staff, also providing transitional care. This is for those babies who are well but born early between 35 weeks and before 37 weeks, or those who may need extra treatment but appear well. This care is provided on the maternity ward where babies may need extra help with feeding, or medication such as antibiotics, providing this service helps to keep mothers and babies together.

Contact the unit

You can contact Clinical Lead, Dr Rewitzky or Senior Sister, Paula Bettinson by telephoning 01553 613730.

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