A-Z of Services

Neonatal Unit

  • Address: Croydon University Hospital 530 London Road, Croydon, CR7 7YE

About us

Welcome to Croydon Neonatal unit. We provide cares for sick and premature babies. All parents hope that their babies will be healthy, but sometimes difficulties arise that mean that your baby requires monitoring and treatment, or support as they were born prematurely.

Our neonatal unit is a Local Neonatal Unit within the South London Neonatal Network. We provide short term intensive care, high dependency care and special care for babies born after 27 weeks (or 28-week twins). For babies who are likely to be before 27 weeks (or 28-week twins), we try to transfer mum and baby to St George’s Hospital before the baby is born, as St George’s Hospital is our tertiary centre. Sometimes this isn’t possible, and families are transferred to other hospitals within the London network. If your baby spends time in a tertiary centre, once they are well enough, they will come back to Croydon Neonatal unit until they are ready to be discharged.

The Neonatal unit is in the Green Zone of the hospital; it shares an entrance with Maternity Triage. Have a look at the map.

Please click here to take a 3D tour around the Neonatal unit. 

It can be very stressful when your baby is admitted to the neonatal unit, but the team on the unit will do their best to support you. We have a 24-hour phone number for parents, to ensure that you can always speak to the team caring for your baby. You can call the receptionist/nurse in charge on: 02084013191

Meet the team

There are a number of different people who are involved in looking after your baby. They all work together to provide specialist care for your baby. Below we have explained a little bit about the different members of the team that you will meet while your baby is on the unit.

Consultants

Consultants are senior doctors with specialist expertise in newborn medicine. They will support you and your baby in the following way:

·         Leading the medical management of your baby.

·         Diagnosing any conditions that they might have and oversee treatment plans.

·         Carry out ward rounds daily to review your babies' progress.

·         Supporting discharge planning and provide follow-up care for your baby.

Advanced Neonatal Nurse Practitioners (ANNPs)

ANNPs are highly experienced neonatal nurses who have undertaken advanced clinical training and can perform many duties traditionally carried out by doctors.

Neonatal Nurses

Neonatal nurses provide the day-to-day care for babies and families on the unit. They will look after your baby by:   

·         Monitoring vital signs, fluid balance, feeding, growth, and development.

·         Administering medications and treatments.

·         Support you in feeding your baby - this could be by breastfeeding, bottle, and tube feeding.

·         Providing developmental care to your baby to promote their comfort and wellbeing.

·         Supporting you as parents in caring for your baby and feeling ready for discharge.

Allied Health Care Professionals

Since 2023 we have employed a team of Allied Health Care Professionals (Clinical Psychologist, Dietitian, Occupational Therapist, Physiotherapist and Speech and Language Therapist) to work with the medical team and families to support the best outcomes for babies.

The Allied Health Care Professionals are here to support and enable you on your journey as a parent getting to know your new baby(s), helping you to feel confident in recognising their cues, behaviour and abilities and enabling you to support and care for them to optimise their development.

The AHP team attend the weekly multidisciplinary ward rounds and are available during the week to support you and your baby.

Clinical Psychology

Our unit Clinical Psychologist supports families who have a premature or sick baby. There are lots of reasons why you might benefit from speaking with a psychologist while your baby is in hospital. The Psychologist is here to listen, think with you about what is happening, and help you find a way through your time on the unit. Clinical Psychologists are trained in a variety of psychological approaches that can be useful for both parents and children (siblings). Speaking to a Psychologist can help families to cope while their baby is admitted to the unit and the Psychologist can support parents to grow and strengthen the bond that they have with their baby, as well as thinking about how parents can continue to look after themselves.

While seeing a Psychologist is a new experience for a lot of people, it is quite normal on the unit due to the often very unexpected and stressful time that parents have. The Psychologist may have shorter conversations with families by the cot-side, or they may meet away from the babies’ cot-side to provide families with more privacy.

The Psychologist does not prescribe medication (like anti-depressants), but they are able to carry out psychological assessments and refer onto services who do prescribed medication if this would be helpful.

Dietetics

Dietitians make sure your baby is receiving optimal nutrition to support their growth and health outcomes. They can explain your baby's nutritional needs and growth and discuss any nutrition related questions you may have as you recover from pregnancy and birth and establish a breastmilk supply.

Occupational Therapy

The role of the occupational therapist is to assess and support infant neurodevelopment, through developmentally supportive care, pain management, sensory and motor support, supporting sleep cycles, behavioural cues, parent engagement and parental support. We will help you learn about your baby’s behavioural cues for interaction, play and movement, signs of stress or overload, and adapting neonatal care activities in response to their individual needs.

Physiotherapy

Physiotherapists are specialists in assessing and supporting your baby’s development and minimising any musculoskeletal impact that can occur when a baby is born prematurely. They consider your baby’s position, posture, movements, wake sleep cycles and behaviours and provide strategies, handling advice and early intervention to optimize developmental care. They also signpost to onward community services to support and optimize developmental outcomes.

Speech and Language Therapy

Speech and Language therapists can assess your baby's ability to suck and swallow and support them to overcome any challenges they may have with feeding. They are concerned with maintaining pleasant experiences around the face and mouth, encouraging positive tastes, mouth care and sucking to enable suck feeding. They also encourage early communication development through interaction, talking and singing opportunities to enable interaction and communication between parent and baby.

Other staff

There are lots of other staff who help to keep the unit running smoothly, like our wonderful health care assistants, housekeepers, chaplains and volunteers.

Day to day life on the unit

Your baby will have a named consultant who takes overall responsibility for your baby’s care while they are admitted to the unit. You will also see this doctor if your baby has any follow up appointments once they have been discharged. During your stay you will also see other members of the consultant team during the daily ward rounds.

Ward rounds - Each morning between 9.30am and 12.30pm the team looking after your baby will review the progress of all the babies on the unit. The ward rounds start in nursery 1 and move towards nursery 4. We encourage all parents to be present for ward rounds if they are able to be, as this enables us to really have you as partners in your babies care. During the ward round we will also update you on your babies progress and investigations that have happened over the last 24 hours.

Some days there may be lots of people attending the ward round and this might feel overwhelming.  If you would prefer to speak to the doctor privately please do let them know.

Visiting - We do not see parents as visitors on the unit as we know how important is for you and your baby to be together. Parents have open access to the unit at any time of the day or night. If a parent is not able to visit they can nominate someone else to visit in their absence. This person will also be able to be on the unit at any time.

We know that Grandparents, siblings, and friends visiting the neonatal unit can be a big support to parents, and babies. They are very welcome to visit you and your baby.

Our visiting policy is regularly reviewed by the neonatal team and the infection control team and may be changed to keep all babies safe. If you have any concerns or questions about the visiting, please speak to the nurse in charge, a doctor, or the Neonatal Matron

Helpful information for parents

We have a parent padlet which has lots more information about our Neonatal Unit. You can access it here: Parent Resource

Parent facilities - There’s a parent's room for you to use if you would like to have some time away from the Nursery. You are welcome to relax in this room and eat and drink in it. Parents also have access to kitchen facilities on the unit; there is a microwave to heat food up, as well as a kettle and toaster. Tea, coffee and milk are provided.

Items your baby will need - We provide most things your baby will need during their stay and have some stock of most things for the first few days.

If your baby was born after 36 weeks gestation, please bring along nappies and either cotton wool or baby wipes x2 (one for their face, one for their bottom). These will be stored under your baby’s incubator/cot.

If your baby was born before 36 weeks gestation, we will provide nappies and cotton wool during the first few days but after that please could you bring along nappies and either cotton wool or wipes for your baby. These will be store under your baby’s incubator/cot.

If your baby weighs less than 1kg we will provide nappies for your baby until they are over 1kg as it is not always possible for you to buy tiny nappies in the shops.

During your time on the unit you may be asked to bring other bits and pieces in such as barrier cream (such as Sudocrem) if needed. You may also wish to bring your own towel to use for baby’s first bath or you can use a hospital towel.

Other items you might like to bring:

·         Cuddly toys - There is limited space for cuddly toys in your babies sleep space so we ask that you don’t bring too many in (you can swap them over if you wish). Please only place one cuddly toy at a time in the baby’s incubator or cot.

·         Milestone cards, if you would like to use them

·         Books to read to your baby

·         A Nursing pillow - we have pillow’s available for you to use, but if there is a specific one that you find most comfortable, please bring this with you.

Mobile phone use - Please keep your phone on silent mode when you are in the nursery. The noise can be distracting for parents and staff, and it can also be disruptive to the babies.

If you need to make or take a phone call please do this outside of the nursery. You are welcome to use our parents room for this.

Parking - Parents can access free parking for one car. Initially this lasts for seven days, but it can be renewed on a weekly basis.

Parents accommodation - We have two rooming in rooms that parents can use to stay in over night before their baby is discharged from the unit.  

Feeding your baby

We would like to support you to feed your baby in the way that works best for your family.

Expressing - Mothers are very welcome to express by the cotside. If you would like more of a private space you can you the expressing room. We offer expressing/breastfeeding packs to help give you and your baby start your feeding journey in the best possible way.

Breast pump hire - You can hire a breast-milk expressing pump from the unit to take home if your baby will be on the unit for an extended period. A refundable £20 deposit will be taken from you and refunded after the pump is returned to the unit before your baby is discharged.

Feeding support - We have a number of different staff members who can support you with breast, bottle and NG feeding during your babies admission to the unit.

Charities that support the unit

Who are Ickle Pickles?

The Ickle Pickles Children’s Charity aims to give every newborn a chance. There are over 90,000 babies born sick or prematurely in the UK every year. Many require Intensive or Special care in a neonatal unit  - we call these babies Ickle Pickles.

We know the difficulties of balancing a restricted budget with the expensive and complex needs of neonatal care and staff numbers. With NHS budgets under extreme scrutiny and pressure, the unfortunate reality is that every neonatal unit in the UK manages a list of kit they urgently need. We work closely with the Croydon Neonatal Unit to find tailored solutions and donate equipment that they most urgently need.

We have been supporting  Croydon’s neonatal unit for many years and have donated vital equipment from ventilators to scales.

To find out more about Ickle Pickles' work and to get involved, visit www.icklepickles.org

Peer support information

Ickle Pickles has a dedicated and trained Peer Supporter onsite weekly at the Croydon Neonatal Unit.

An admission to the Neonatal Unit can be a challenging experience for a family. In addition to the unit’s psychologist, families can talk to someone with personal experience of what it’s like to have a child on the unit.  A lot of parent’s report that speaking to other parents gives them comfort and relevant information.

Through the sharing of experiences, NICU graduate parents help each other to validate feelings, reduce isolation, and increase parents’ confidence in interacting with medical staff. Peer-to-peer support can help parents cope more effectively with the NICU experience.

You can read more about our wonderful parents’ journeys here.

Tamsyn, Ickle Pickles Croydon NNU Peer Supporter:

Hello, I’m Tamsyn, mother to Arabella, who spent three months across two London neonatal units. Whilst on the units, I was lucky enough to meet some amazing families who became part of my support network. The experience of being a NICU mum changed me, and I wanted to give back to the units and community that saved my daughter and supported me through the neonatal roller coaster. I now have the privilege of sharing my experiences and supporting families on the unit.

 Coffee mornings

The aim of Ickle Pickles’ monthly coffee mornings is to empower parents by giving them the opportunity to talk openly and freely, without any judgment, about their experiences and to support them with advice, to give them the confidence to speak to the Neonatal professionals and work together in the care of the baby.

These sessions have allowed parents to meet in a relaxed environment with no judgements about their babies, especially those with health issues or special needs. They share tips and advice but also offer friendship and a shoulder to cry on if needed. These coffee mornings are inclusive, support mental wellbeing and reduce loneliness and isolation.

With the support of Ickle Pickles, Croydon’s Neonatal Unit’s Peer Support Group facilitates monthly Coffee Mornings. The Peer Support Group, or Neoheroes, are parents who have had babies in neonatal care and understand the need for support during these difficult times. The Peers also provide one-to-one support to parents currently on the unit.

If you would like to get involved or find out more information, please contact Tamsyn at Ickle Pickles - tamsyn@icklepickles.org 

Parents accommodation

We have two rooming in rooms that are for parents to care for their child prior to going home in a supported environment.

Due to unforeseen circumstances, you may be asked to vacate the room at short notice.

There’s a parent's room on the unit and access to a microwave, kettle, toaster and coffee/tea provided. Children must be supervised at all times.

Parking

  • Weekly special visitors parking Dispensation permit.
  • Permit is valid only for 7 days and it costs £15.00.
  • One permit per patient.

Take a tour of the unit

Take a tour around the Neonatal Unit (NNU), at Croydon University Hospital.

We have launched an interactive 3D tour of our Neonatal Unit, that allows parents and families to virtually explore the unit before and during their stay.

In this tour you can navigate through the unit and family facilities. There are lots of information tags. These tags explain the different areas of the unit and the equipment that might be used, helping families to familiarise themselves with the clinical area and gain valuable information about their stay.

We appreciate that it can be a very worrying time for parents whose babies may need specialist care on our unit, and we hope that being able to visualise the unit prior to visiting in person can provide some reassurance.

If you are a parent or carer and wish to use the virtual tour to explore the Neonatal Unit where your baby was cared for, please make sure you are in a safe space and feel emotionally ready to revisit the unit. We know that revisiting the unit, even years down the line, can bring back emotional memories, so please take care.

Take a tour around the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU)

The tour was developed in partnership with the London Neonatal Operational Delivery Network and was funded by Ickle Pickles Children’s Charity.

With thanks to all the families and staff featuring who consented to their faces being blurred.

Visiting

Our neonatal unit's visiting policy is designed to prioritise the safety and wellbeing of our vulnerable patients while allowing for necessary family engagement and support. Therefore, we have implemented an open policy towards parental access to their babies. We recognise the importance of parental involvement in the care of their newborns and understand that it plays a crucial role in fostering positive outcomes for both infants and their families. Our neonatal unit's visiting guidance embraces the principles of family-centered care.

Grandparents, siblings, and friends visiting the neonatal unit can have a positive impact on both the parents and the baby. It is important to recognise the value of involving extended family members and friends in the neonatal unit visiting process. Their presence can offer additional support, comfort, and encouragement to the parents during what can be a highly stressful and emotional time.

Not only do grandparents, siblings, and friends bring love and emotional support to the parents, but their presence also helps create a sense of community and connection within the neonatal unit. This connection is essential for the well-being of both the parents and the baby.

· Parents and nominated support partners can access their baby together without restrictions 24/7 and are not considered visitors but equal partners in their baby’s care.

· All other visitors can visit daily between 1500-1700 and 10-12 on weekends - only two people will be allowed at the cot side, one of whom should be a parent or the nominated support person. Children must be supervised at all times, and visitors should respect the privacy of other babies and families in the unit

· Please inform the nurse looking after your baby if you plan to bring visitors to the unit outside of the visiting hours, as we know all families have individual needs

· During high activity and clinical emergencies, we may restrict visiting or ask visitors to sit in the waiting area due to the limited space in the unit.

· Please remember to follow the Infection, Prevention, and Control measures such as handwashing and removing your coat before entering the clinical areas

· For the safety of all babies, all visitors must report to the neonatal receptionist, a nurse, or a doctor before entering the clinical areas

· Please note that this guidance is regularly reviewed by the neonatal team and the infection control team and may be changed to keep all babies safe

· If you have any concerns or questions about the visiting guidance, please speak to any nurse, doctor, or the Neonatal Matron