22 <strong>Robert</strong> <strong>Wood</strong> <strong>Johnson</strong> ■ MEDICINE A NICU Fit for Two Tiny Kings F ull-term babies are born in the 40th week of their mother’s pregnancy. But twins Nia and Akeelah King had other plans. When their mother, Aliyah King, unexpectedly went into labor in the 25th week of her pregnancy, her obstetrician, a community physician at Somerset Medical Center, sent her to <strong>Robert</strong> <strong>Wood</strong> <strong>Johnson</strong> University Hospital for specialized neonatal care. Nia and Akeelah were delivered by cesarean section with two medical teams on hand, one for each baby. Weighing, respectively, 1 pound 9 ounces and 1 pound 10 ounces and measuring about 12 inches in length each, the babies were whisked off to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. “Nia was so small that when she gripped her mother’s finger, her hand only reached partway around,” recalls Ms. King’s mother, Corliss King. The babies stayed in the NICU for three and a half months, while Aliyah King lived across the street in the Ronald McDonald House. She spent every waking hour in the NICU with her babies. “First, I just sat with them and talked to them,” she says. “As they got older, I could touch them. Then I could hold them, feed them, and bathe them.” Like all their NICU neighbors, Nia and Akeelah had their own nursing teams providing excellent continuity of care. Coincidentally, Dr. Hegyi and several of the nurses already knew the Kings: nineteen years before, when Aliyah King was born in the 24th week of her mother’s pregnancy, Dr. Hegyi was her doctor and three of the current NICU nurses cared for her. In late November, very close to their original due date, Nia and Akeelah were discharged from the NICU, and they have done extremely well since. The staff had coached Ms. King in home interventions that would keep her babies on track developmentally. Ms. King and her family gave the infant’s hours of “tummy time” to encourage normal development of motor skills. Every day the twins get lots of human interaction and story time — and no TV. The family is rewarded not only by excellent reports from the NICU’s semi-annual developmental clinic, but also by two girls, now three years old, who are, as their grandmother says, “articulate, affectionate, loving and caring little people, who are growing up fast.” M “ We bring together a team. We pre-plan with the parents, the NICU, MFM, and possibly a surgeon, if one will be needed after the baby is born,” says Susan Sklower Brooks, MMS ’73, MD, professor of pediatrics (center), with Thomas Hegyi, MD, professor of pediatrics, and pediatric psychologist Barbara M. Ostfeld, PhD, professor of pediatrics. Dr. Hegyi and Dr. Ostfeld also serve, respectively, as medical director and program director for the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Center of New Jersey. doctors in the RWJMS high-risk clinic. RWJAP follows the mothers and their infants throughout the post-partum period, until the baby is 18 months old. Education is a key to the program’s goal of minimizing the risk of mother-to-child transmission of HIV either during delivery or once the baby is home. Each year, the Eric B. Chandler Health Center at RWJMS provides prenatal care to 900 women, who depend on Medicaid or are self-paying. The Chandler Health Center’s services are comparable to those found in private practice, says the center’s program director for OB/GYN services, Sharon B. Stechna, MD, assistant professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences. Chandler’s obstetric program has a strong educational component, which addresses issues ranging from prenatal care, to infant care, to contraception. High-risk mothers-to-be — including those who have pre-existing diabetes or hypertension or are pregnant with multiples — are cared for in the MFM division, which offers deeply discounted sonograms for patients who are selfpaying. “Everyone at the medical school bends over backward for our patients,” says Dr. Stechna. “RWJMS believes that every pregnant woman and her baby deserve the same excellent level of care.” The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: Caring for the Tiniest Citizens in the Village When a baby is born pre-term or with a prediagnosed or suspected medical condition, a neonatologist serves on the delivery team. The newborn JOHN EMERSON
<strong>Robert</strong> <strong>Wood</strong> <strong>Johnson</strong> ■ MEDICINE 23
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