Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU)

When you're choosing a birthing center, you want to feel confident that your baby will have fast access to care if an emergency arises.

At Emanate Health, our 40-bed NICU is one of the largest and most technically advanced in the area.

Here are some of the many things that make the Queen of the Valley Hospital NICU exceptional.

An expert team

Our NICU staff includes experts from a wide range of specialties who will care for your family through every step of your baby's care journey.

Members of our NICU team include:

Board-certified neonatologists. At least one of our specialists is available at all times.

Highly trained nurses. Each of our NICU nurses has extensive, specialized training on caring for critically ill infants.

Neonatal resuscitation team. These specialized nurses and respiratory therapists are available around-the-clock and use their highly trained skills to transport infants at other hospitals back to our NICU for elevated care.

Certified lactation consultants. We'll do everything in our power to help you breast-feed during your child's time in the NICU and help you keep breast-feeding after your baby goes home.

Social workers. Our social workers ensure families get the emotional support they need.

Case managers. Every family has a case manager to help them with discharge and assist with the next step in their child's care journey.

Technologically advanced care

We use state-of-the-art medical equipment to care for your little one. For example:

• Babies stay in their own Giraffe OmniBed, a highly technical incubator that can easily convert at a moment's notice to a procedural bed should a critical care scenario arise. This allows our team to provider faster care to your baby. Giraffe OmniBeds are also able to produce humidity for babies with skin conditions and help regulate baby's temperature.
• We are a Level IIIB NICU designated by the American Academy of Pediatrics. A Level IIIB designation means we provide critical care and perform specified levels of surgeries within our designated scope, for babies born premature or with special medical conditions.
• We are a California Children's Services-(CCS) approved community NICU.
• Members of our medical team train frequently in The Family Birth & Newborn Center's high-fidelity simulation room. They frequently run resuscitation drills and other scenarios to guarantee we achieve better care and better outcomes.

Support for families

A lot goes into having a child in the NICU. Our team and facilities are structured to help ease family anxieties and promote bonding with your baby. Here are some of the ways we help:

Extended visiting hours and rooming-in options. Parents and designated adult visitors are welcome anytime except for during our two shift changes from 6 to 7:30 a.m. and 6 to 7:30 p.m.

Transition of care. Our case managers will help you with any necessary follow-up care after your little one leaves the NICU. We also provide "rooming in" the night before discharge to help parents with infants that have special needs or care practices, in order to help decrease the parents anxiety.

NICU Family Support Group. We host a monthly support group where parents can connect with one another, share their journey and provide support for one another.