TODAY we can show you the state-of-the-art facilities which could save premature babies at a £5.5m extension of the John Radcliffe Hospital’s Newborn Intensive Care Unit.

The number of intensive care cot spaces for the sickest babies is doubling from 10 to 20, with 16 in two neighbouring eight-bed nurseries.

New hi-tech equipment includes 13 new incubators, which cost £25,000 each, and 19 new £35,000 ventilators, which help premature babies to breathe.

Clinical Director for Newborn Care Services Dr Eleri Adams said: “The unit has not been rebuilt since the 1970s, the technology has moved on, and it has become very crowded.

“We see babies born up to three months early and the limit for viability has not changed – cases of survival before 23 weeks are extremely rare.

“There are more pre-term babies being born since the 1980s, with more mums giving birth later and more multiple births, due to an increase in IVF treatment.

“At the moment, there are about 80 families a year in the Thames Valley region that we are having to turn away and the new unit will improve that situation.”

Last year the unit, which has a total of 42 cot spaces for three separate levels of care, looked after 895 babies, with about a third of them needing the highest level of intensive care.

Dr Adams estimated that an additional 100 extra babies a year will now receive intensive care support, in the new extension.

She added that the incubators will provide babies with a high level of humidity and heat control.

“Pre-term babies need 80 to 90 per cent humidity to keep their skin warm and hydrated until the skin hardens, which takes about a week,” she added.

Construction work started in May last year and families from across the Thames Valley will be able to start using the extension when it opens on Monday, July 29.

Plans to extend the unit were confirmed in 2011 when the hospital said in 12 months they had turned away about 80 seriously sick babies because they did not have the space to treat them.

Clinical nurse manager Laura Willoughby, 32, from Abingdon, said: “No mum expects to go into premature labour so it can be a sad and shocking time.

“With premature babies you cannot predict what their future is going to be, so that makes it even harder.”

A new house next to the John Radcliffe for the parents of very sick babies to use while their child is in hospital has also opened.

The Osler Road house accommodates three families at a time, while the unit can take another four.

Hospital-based charity Support for the Sick Newborn and the Parents (SSNAP), will be working to care for the increasing number of families using the unit. Charity manager Julie da Silva Moore said: “The extension will be a much calmer, quieter and bigger space for parents and medical staff.”

Of the £5.5m, £2.2m is from the Government to spend on equipment and the rest is funded by Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust.

New breathing and diagnostic equipment and monitoring systems have been installed.

 

'IT MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE'

Dad-of-one Steve Relton, from Little Milton, near Thame, said he would not be a father without the help of the unit.

He and wife Sara Relton had their son Nathan at the unit seven years ago.

Nathan, pictured with his dad, was born two months premature and spent the first week of his life struggling to survive.

Mr Relton said: “I really thought we were going to lose him – it was really tough.

“But he is doing absolutely fine now – you just wouldn’t know he was premature at all.

“A lot of families go through the unit and not all are as lucky as we are.

“It is not just about saving lives – it is the difference between a baby having a normal outlook or severe disability.”

Julia Tilford, in her 40s and from East Oxford, gave birth to her son Finlay at the hospital in December 2008.

He was born at 29 weeks – 11 weeks premature – and initially needed the highest level of intensive care in the unit where he spent three months.

He also developed infant chronic lung disease and needed oxygen support for a year after coming home.

Ms Tilford, who lives with Finlay, her husband Peter Shepherd and daughter Martha, seven, said: “Finlay is fine now and is about to start primary school.

“I saw the extension the other day when we had a consultant’s appointment and it looks fantastic.”