25% of NICU babies at Latifa Hospital pre-term last year
Neonates are placed in an incubator and once the baby’s condition is stable, healthcare professionals teach the parents kangaroo care (skin-to-skin contact).” Dr Mahmoud El Halik, head of paediatrics and neonatology, Latifa Hospital
dubai — In a bid to enhance care for neonates in Dubai, the Dubai Health Authority (DHA)’s dedicated maternity and paediatric facility, Latifa Hospital, is offering a range of services that aim to aid pre-term babies and their families.
Dr Mahmoud El Halik, head of paediatrics and neonatology at the Latifa Hospital, said the hospital ensures providing the essential care through its facility — the largest Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in the Northern Emirates with 64 beds for neonates.
Almost 25 per cent of babies admitted to NICU in 2017 were pre-term. Pre-term babies are those born before 37 weeks, normally weigh less than 2.5kg, and therefore need essential care to be nursed back to health including protection from infections, ensuring that they are kept warm, ensuring skin-to skin contact with the mother and that they are receiving sufficient breast milk.
“DHA hospitals encourage family involvement to promote a baby’s healthy development in the NICU from day one. Neonates are placed in an incubator and once the baby’s condition is stable, healthcare professionals teach the mother and father kangaroo care (skin-to-skin contact between the baby and their parents),” said Dr El Halik.
The hospital introduced Kangaroo Mother Care which, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), is one of the most effective ways to meet a premature baby’s needs for warmth, frequent breast-feeding, protection from infection, stimulation, safety and love. WHO estimates that this technique could save an estimated 450,000 preterm newborns a year.
“Parents’ reassuring and loving touch is known to have many health benefits and one of the key benefits is that it helps in the lactation process. Babies’ vital signs are closely monitored, a feeding tube may be used to provide breast milk to pre-term babies and when the baby can suckle, direct breast-feeding is introduced,” he said.
Latifa Hospital has nursed babies as tiny as 420gms back to health and has achieved more than 85 per cent exclusive breast-feeding rate for all the neonates admitted in the NICU. According to Dr El Halik, the NICU is equipped with the latest equipment to provide state-ofthe art services for pre-term babies. “We provide ‘total body cooling’ for babies who experienced Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy (HIE) at birth — where the infant’s temperature is lowered slowly and safely to 33 degrees centigrade for three days. This technique has internationally proven to decrease the severity and extent of potential brain injury from HIE.”
Latifa Hospital is also a pioneer in Dubai to provide a family room in the NICU where the neonate and the mother stay for a few days prior to discharge from hospital. “This is a one-ofa-kind of facility available at the Latifa Hospital. During these days, the mother spends 24 hours with her baby (specially complicated cases) and practices the bathing, feeding and routine care for her newborn.”
“We also educate her on signs and symptoms to look out for, which require her to bring her baby back to the hospital. She is enhanced on the initially taught breast-feeding techniques, provided with details of the next follow-up visits and a vaccination schedule,” said Dr El Halik.
The DHA hospitals with perinatal services have a committed Infant Follow up Clinics that follow up graduates of NICU up to the age of two years to ensure adequate growth and development and manage complicated cases according to the best international standards.
Latifa Hospital also has a dedicated breast-feeding/lactation clinic which is open to lactating mothers and offer support to all discharged mothers for all problems related to breast-feeding of their newborns.
asmaalizain@khaleejtimes.com