Expanded Special Care Nursery Opens At Delnor Hospital

Babies weighing as little as two pounds, 12 ounces born at Delnor Hospital are able to avoid being transferred to a different facility since the opening of a special care nursery. The nursery at Northwestern Medicine Delnor Hospital in Geneva recently unveiled its new 600-square-foot addition, which includes a bathroom, utility room and visitor lockers, the Kane County Chronicle reports. The nursery caters to infants who are premature, have complex medical conditions or who are low birth weight.

The nursery is part of the second phase of an $8 million expansion of the hospital's New Life Maternity Center, according to the Kane County Chronicle.

The Special Care Nursery at Northwestern Medicine Delnor earned the designation of Level II-E with Extended Capabilities from the state of Illinois. This designation means the nursery can care for low birthweight infantss that are 2 pounds, 12 ounces or more; premature infants of 30 or more weeks gestation; and full-term infants with medical complications.

The special care nursery features six beds and 24/7 on-site coverage provided by neonatal specialists or neonatal nurse practitioners, according to the Delnor website.

“The nursery allows the baby– if born with complications or is preterm – to stay with the mother in the community instead of being transferred away from their community,” Stanley said. “It allows us to provide a continuum of care in the same hospital.”

Of the 13,000 babies born in 2016 at Delnor Hospital, 120 or 8 percent required time in the special care nursery, Stanley told the Kane County Chronicle.

More via the Kane County Chronicle

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