A neonatal transitional care unit, that's a New Zealand first, is improving health outcomes for babies and mothers.
The unit, on the maternity ward of Auckland City Hospital, is called Whitinga ora pēpi, which means babies transitioning to wellness.
It's designed for babies who don't need to be in Starship's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit but do require high-level support before they are able to go home.
"We are an eight-bed unit, we run 24/7 and we are a collaboration between Starship’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and women's health here at Te Toka Tumi.", Co-Charge Midwife Rebecca Clark told Newshub.
"Before the service was in place, we had either our NICU for babies that are needing intensive monitoring or the postnatal wards."
"It’s the ideal environment for late preterm infants born around 35-36 weeks or our NICU graduates."
The unit uses a model of care that puts whanau front and centre, with support from various teams.
"We are nurse and midwifery-led on the floor each day. But we have this huge wrap-around support from paediatricians, speech and language therapists, lactation consultants and our obstetricians and they are all here supporting and they are here when they need them," says Rebecca.
Since it opened in 2021, the unit has supported more than 350 mothers and 400 babies.
Including Maiwa Sio who was born at 36 weeks and five days.
"She was a surprise in terms of when she came along. She had a bit of a challenging birth. She was delivered by forceps," says Maiwa's mother, Laura Sio.
Maiwa and Laura ended up spending 10 days in Whitinga ora pēpi.
"I was able to have specialist feeding because she wasn’t able to latch, she wasn’t latching at the time. She had lots of blue light therapy to decrease her jaundice over time. So it really was the rainbow in the rain for us," says Laura.
A rainbow with a pot of gold at the end of it in terms of good outcomes for mums and babies.
"Bonding and attachment is a big thing that we are seeing.," says Rebecca.
"Confidence, feeling well supported, being able to leave the unit feeling ready. Our breast feeding rates are great and the ongoing breastfeeding success passed 3-6 months is fantastic. Other things readmission rates have decreased. And our length of stay which is something we would expect because there is this intensive time, the length of stay overall for the pepi is shorter."
Outcomes that have all been made possible through funding from the Starship Foundation and one of their partners, Barfoot and Thompson.
"I hope for our service we continue to thrive and impact our community and have these continued positive outcomes," says Rebecca.
To ensure our youngest tamariki have the best possible start in life.
