Neonatal Intensive Care
NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) is designated Level 4 and a New York State Regional Perinatal Center. We care for over 1,100 critically ill infants every year, with approximately 30 percent of those transferred to us after delivery at other centers, some of them the most complex cases from other Level 4 centers.
Complex birth defects are a key focus of our fetal and newborn medical teams.
We provide the highest level of neonatal care and have a full range of medical and surgical subspecialties to care for the sickest infants, including those with extreme prematurity, respiratory failure, very low birth weight/extremely low birth weight, congenital heart disease, and other complex congenital abnormalities that may require surgery.
Our multidisciplinary Comfort Care Team of obstetricians and neonatologists, delivery room, post-partum and NICU nurses, social workers, and other specialists provide an individualized and compassionate plan of postnatal care to infants with life-limiting conditions.
Very Low Birth Weight (VLBW) Infants
In 2016, our neonatologists treated over 165 very low birth weight (1,500 grams) newborns and our NICU outperformed the Vermont Oxford Network (VON)* benchmarks in several significant categories. Notably, NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital has one of the best infant survival rates among neonatal intensive care units nationally, with both inborn and admitted VLBW infants having a significantly higher survival rate than those in the Vermont Oxford Network benchmark*. Additionally, our outcomes for neonates with chronic lung disease are excellent, a result of our expertise in Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP).
Comparison to Vermont Oxford Network (VON)* benchmark demonstrates excellent outcomes for inborn Very Low Birth Weight (VLBW) infants during 2016.
| NYP MSCH NICU | VON NICU Type C** | |
| Mortality | 13.1% | 16.3% |
| Death or Morbidity | 33.9% | 47.6% |
| Chronic Lung Disease | 7.6% | 27.7% |
| Any Intraventricular Hemorrhage | 11.2% | 25.0% |
| Severe Intraventricular Hemorrhage | 6.6% | 9.7% |
| Late Bacterial Infection | 6.0% | 9.2% |
| Any Late Infection | 8.7% | 13.6% |
**VON NICUs with no restriction on ventilation and major surgery performed, including cardiac surgery.
*Our NICU is part of the Vermont Oxford Network (VON), a consortium of over 800 participating NICUs around the world, which provides a benchmark for quality patient care. Infants are eligible for the Very Low Birth Weight (VLBW) database if they have a birth weight from 401 to 1500 g, or a gestational age between 22 and 32 weeks and are born at the member hospital or transferred to it within 28 days of birth.