Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

Team Composition

Babies in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit are cared for by a large multidisciplinary team, including:

• a medical team consisting of a neonatal paediatrician (senior doctor), fellow and registrar (doctors training to be paediatricians). There is a medical team in the nursery 24 hours a day.
• opthalmologist (a doctor specialising in diagnosing and treating eye problems)
• specialised neonatal nurses, midwives and mothercraft nurses, who provide bedside care to all babies
• echocardiographer, who performs ultrasounds of the heart
• physiotherapist, who assesses and helps create programs for babies with developmental difficulties
• speech pathologist, who helps assess and treat babies who have problems feeding and swallowing
• dietitian, who helps assess babies with poor growth or increased energy requirements
• lactation consultants with experience in helping mothers of premature babies
• care managers, who help organise resources and support services for babies with complex needs
• discharge coordinators, who help organise a baby’s discharge from the nursery. This may be to a hospital closer to your home.
• social workers, who help parents with practical problems and offer emotional support while your baby is in the nursery. They can help rural families arrange accommodation closer to the hospital and provide travel assistance. They can link parents to local community support groups before you take your baby home.
• pastoral care workers, who provide spiritual and emotional support to families, no matter what religious or cultural beliefs you hold
• interpreters, who are available to translate information for families whose second language is English
• ward clerk, who looks after the administrative aspects of the nursery and can help with hiring breast pumps, securing car parking vouchers, and any other administrative aspects of your baby’s care.

What questions should you ask

We welcome parents to come to the nursery, ask questions or call at any time of the day or night. We do not think of parents as visitors and we encourage you to spend as much time as possible with your baby.

Discharge information

Premature babies are usually ready to go home around the time they reach full term, although this varies from baby to baby. Some premature babies may stay beyond their due date.

There is no special weight that babies must reach to be able to go home, but your baby must be feeding well and gaining weight, and you must be confident in giving your baby the care they need.

For babies born with problems at term, their length of stay in hospital depends on the nature of the problems.

Mercy Hospital for Women is a hospital for high-risk infants who need specialist care. Due to statewide demands on our services, we may need to move your baby to a local special care nursery closer to your home. This creates space for other babies who need to be in hospital for intensive care or specialist treatment.

We make the decision to transfer your baby to a local nursery in your family’s best interest.; it is a positive and exciting step towards getting your baby ready to be discharged home. Where possible, babies are transferred to hospitals where their birth was booked. Babies are transferred by the Paediatric Infant Perinatal Emergency Retrieval (PIPER) service. All babies are tended to by a trained neonatal transport nurse. Our discharge coordinators will explain the transfer process.

Additional support

Some babies who are ready to leave the hospital will be transferred to our Hospital in the Home program (HITH). In this case, your baby will still be a patient of Mercy Hospital for Women, but the medical team has decided your baby is ready to be cared for at home. If your baby is transferred to Hospital In The Home, one of our nurses or midwives will visit you within 48 hours of leaving the hospital. Hospital in the Home will ring you on the morning of the visit to confirm.

Once your baby is discharged from the Hospital in the Home program, your local Maternal and Child Health Nurse will contact you to make an appointment to see your baby at home.

Opportunities to be involved in research

During your baby’s time in the nursery, research staff may ask you to be involved in a study or survey. Pregnancy and newborn research has improved the health of mothers-to-be and the survival, and overall health, of sick and premature babies. However, there are still a lot of questions to be answered.

We hope you consider participating in research and becoming part of the team helping to improve the health of future babies. However, you do not have to take part in research if you do not want to.

Who to call if you have concerns afterwards

While your baby is in the Hospital in the Home program, parents can call 03 8458 4466 from 7am–4.30pm with any questions or concerns.

After hours, parents can phone the nursery on 03 8458 4730.