NICU

• Certified neonatologist on site 24/7
• 24-hour neonatal transport team
• Direct admission
• Respiratory therapist on site 24/7
• CPR training provided to parents and caregivers
• Dedicated case manager for the Level III NICU and obstetric areas
• Dedicated support staff in physical therapy, speech therapy and pharmacy
• Donor milk program
• Long-term nutritional support with total parenteral nutrition
• Nitric oxide capabilities for persistent pulmonary hypertension
• Total body cooling
• Parent-baby classes
• Follow-up care
• Bereavement committee with grief counseling

We encourage you to be with your baby as much as you wish. However, we ask that only band holders be at the bedside. This enables us to provide a quiet, nurturing environment while maximizing our ability to care for your baby. Additional visitors may wait in the waiting room. There may be special circumstances when additional visitors would be permitted. The leadership team will work with you in advance to facilitate. Visitors must be over 18 years old and no one under the age of 18 is to be left unattended in the waiting room.

To ensure a less disruptive environment and privacy during shift change, we ask that you are present at bedside in advance of shift change. You are invited and encouraged to participate in patient handoff. If you are unable to be present just prior to shift change, we ask that you wait in the waiting room during these times (6:30am – 7:30am, 6:30pm – 7:30pm, or until shift change has finished).

Please help protect your baby by not allowing anyone to visit who has a cold, cold sores, rashes, chicken pox, intestinal problems or other infectious diseases. Babies are very vulnerable to infections and can easily get sick from visitors. If you are in doubt about whether or not you or a relative should visit, please talk to your baby’s nurse.

To limit your baby’s exposure to illness, children are not allowed in the NICU to protect your infant and other infants from infection. Children may wait in the waiting room. An adult must supervise children at all times. We try to maintain a quiet environment in the NICU for our babies. We may ask you/your child to leave the waiting area if they become noisy or disruptive.

With the private rooms in the NICU at Henrico Doctors’ Hospital, we can re-admit babies who have been discharged directly to the NICU without the necessity of going through the emergency room.

We can take and/or transport infants who meet age criteria from other facilities. We have a neonatal transport team in-house for all neonatal transports. Our medical transport helicopter, Air Care Eagle and our ground ambulances are is fully equipped to facilitate NICU and newborn transports.