Friday, May 29, 2009

Sinai NICU Helps Babies Gain Strength

Diane Boulay was 27 weeks into her pregnancy when, uncertain if her premature labor could be stopped, she was admitted to Sinai Hospital and placed on bed rest. Less than three weeks later, Alexander Marc Boulay was born, weighing just three pounds, one ounce.“Within 24 hours, I was holding Alex and I was encouraged to breastfeed,” recalls Boulay, who spent the next four days and nights in the Jennifer Gandel Kachura Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Sinai Hospital, where Alexander would remain for the next month.

“I knew the quality of care at Sinai was top notch and I could not be in better hands,” says Boulay, who is enjoying life at home with a happy, healthy Alex and his 6-year-old sister, Anna.

All Sinai NICU physicians are board certified in Pediatrics and in Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine. Parents, grandparents and healthy siblings can visit 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The NICU is equipped to provide the most state-of-the-art care to sick newborns. Sinai’s newborn nursery was one of the first in the region to institute universal jaundice screening with the goal of decreasing the number of severe jaundice cases.

Sinai’s Level III+ NICU consistently ranks among the top 20 percent of care units in the nation. The Pediatric department covers most subspecialties, including pediatric surgery.The NICU is a member of a nationwide consortium of more than 450 neonatal centers—the Vermont-Oxford Neonatal Network—which serves as an information resource and database management for NICU statistics.

For more information about the Sinai NICU or Institute for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, or to be referred to a physician specializing in neonatology, call 410-601-WELL (9355).

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