Fundraising for Neonatal Care
Birmingham Women’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) provides the highest level of specialist care to the sickest and smallest babies from across the West Midlands. The NICU also works closely with Birmingham Children’s Hospital to care for babies with surgical abnormalities, enabling these babies to be looked after within the West Midlands instead of having to travel further afield .
Last year alone, over 800 babies were cared for on the Women’s NICU.
In October 2010, the eagerly-awaited and much- needed new NICU opened. The new NICU has helped improve our care further and has been designed to be able to care up to 50 babies, although currently there are only staff and equipment for 34 babies to be cared for at any one time. There are times when babies have to be moved to other neonatal units because there is not enough equipment, and as well as too few staff to care for them. The goal is to have the equipment and staff to be able to care for every baby needing specialist care at the Women’s.
By purchasing additional vital equipment, this goal can be reached. Your help can really make a difference
Tiny Babies, Big Appeal
How YOU can help our tiny babies…
Here is some of the vital equipment we need…
- Incubators
Incubators help to ensure that the temperature and humidity is kept constant for the baby (Individual Cost £20,000) - Ventilators
These machines breathe for a baby and are needed when their lungs are too weak or under-developed to breathe on their own (Individual Cost £25,000) - Phototherapy Unit
A Special Unit to treat neonatal jaundice (Cost £2,000) - Apnoea Monitors
These Monitors are able to monitor and record a baby’s breathing pattern (Individual Cost £960) - Scales
Precision scales to weigh sick and premature babies quickly, accurately and safely (Cost £400)
Other ways YOU can help:
Parental Accomodation:
Caring and saving lives of babies born from as early as 23 weeks means that many of our tiny babies spend several months on the unit. At such a worrying and emotional time, it is important that families are close by to help bond with their babies. At present, we have 4 parental flats available for use but there is a real need for additional accommodation to meet the growing demand. If we could extend this facility then this would make a real difference to many of our tiny patients and their families.
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