NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) for Mercy’s Smallest Patients

Featured on national television on the Discovery Health Network documentary-style program, “NICU,” our Neonatal Intensive Care Unit includes a team of dedicated specialists who deliver care in a private, homelike environment. Mercy was one of the first hospitals in the Baltimore area to offer private NICU rooms, which allow parents to stay by their baby’s bedside and continue the bonding process.

Our NICU is staffed with a team of professionals to care for your little one:

• Neonatologists (pediatricians who are newborn intensive care specialists)
• Neonatal Nurse Practitioners and Nurses
• Respiratory Therapists
• Social Workers
• Audiologists
• Occupational and Physical Therapists
• Developmental Specialists
• Lactation Consultants

The all-private NICU rooms in our hospital allow for individualized developmental care and create a more natural environment, closer to what the baby will experience at home.

Often parents of NICU babies are not prepared for a premature or sick infant and don’t want to leave their baby. At Mercy they don’t have to. One member of the family can stay overnight in the baby’s room, which is outfitted with a sleep sofa. Our Mother-Baby Unit is located nearby the NICU so new moms can easily visit their baby and spend the night in the baby’s room if they wish.

As a Level III-B NICU, we care for babies of any birth weight and gestational age who experience the following conditions:

• Prematurity  
• Respiratory Distress Syndrome, and other respiratory disorders
• Infection  
• Complications of the infant of a diabetic mother  
• Congenital anomalies, including congenital heart disease  
• Inutero growth problems
• Disorders of the central nervous system
• Substance exposure   

The NICU at Mercy is equipped with the latest technologies to diagnose, monitor and treat newborn diseases and conditions. Our NICU provides most types of neonatal intensive care, with the exception of major surgery.

• Comprehensive care for all newborns, of any gestational age or birth weight

• High frequency ventilation and Inhaled Nitric Oxide therapy (advanced respiratory care)
• Pediatric subspecialist consultative services  
• Pediatric surgery consultative services  
• Advanced imaging including computed tomography, MRI and echocardiography  
• Individualized teaching for parents to instruct them on any necessary specialized care that their infant may need after discharge