Standard procedure for the NICU
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Neonatologist Philippe Friedlich, MD, explains what the common procedures are for a newborn baby when he or she is admitted to the NICU
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When your baby is admitted to the NICU, there are a fwe things that are going to happen immediately. The baby is going to be placed in a special bed. And the nurse will attach a special device to your baby to look at his respiration, his heart rate, monitor his blood pressure. It will also monitor the amount of oxygen that is in his blood. Those are fairly common procedures that happen right at the beginning of the NICU journey. Depending on each baby's condition, there may be other procedures that are also done. For example, getting an X-ray of the chest or the belly, measuring some blood sample for electrolytes or the amount of oxygen that there is in the blood. There are also some other procedures when the baby cannot eat by mouth because they are premature. Sometimes nurses will put a little tube from their mouth or nose to their stomach so that the baby can be fed. Very often babies that cannot be fed need to be given nutrition other means, such as given nutrition through their veins. So very often babies will be given a short intravenous catheter placed somewhere in their sometimes on their hands or leg. Sometimes what will alarm parents is that the catheter is placed on the baby's head. But for the most part, the nurse will try to place it on the legs or the arm. And those are really the common procedures that are often done in the Neonatal Intensive Care.
Neonatologist Philippe Friedlich, MD, explains what the common procedures are for a newborn baby when he or she is admitted to the NICU
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Philippe Friedlich, MDNeonatologist
Philippe Friedlich, MD, MS Epi, MBA is the Associate Director and Division Chief of the Center for Fetal and Neonatal Medicine at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, as well as the Medical Director of the hospital’s Newborn & Infant Critical Care Unit (NICCU). Dr. Friedlich is a professor of Pediatrics and Surgery at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California.
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