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Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU)

Newborn Baby

The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) is a Welsh regional unit based at the University Hospital of Wales (UHW) site, and works within the All Wales Neonatal Network.

The unit provides tertiary level care for neonates requiring surgery, those referred from the fetal medicine service and neonatal intensive care for the local population of Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan.  We are a busy unit with a maximum capacity of 30 neonatal cots.

There are many reasons why babies require admission to the NICU, but most babies are either born prematurely or are born at term but then become unwell. We routinely look after babies born as early as only 24 weeks gestation and occasionally 23 weeks gestation.

During their stay on the unit many babies require input from our specialist paediatric colleagues, most frequently from the Paediatric surgeons. Most out born babies that are admitted are specialist referrals for Paediatric surgery, Ear Nose and Throat (ENT), Neurosurgery or Ophthalmology.

 

 

Neonatal Transport Service

The Neonatal Transport Service for South Wales is supported by the three level 3 units in South Wales.

The service is a 7 day service operating for 12 hours a day.

We retrieve acutely unwell patients and also do reverse transports transporting babies back to their base hospitals.

 

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