Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU)

Palmdale Regional Medical Center’s maternity unit, The Birth Place, now offers a Level II neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) for preterm and term newborns requiring specialized care. Your baby will be treated and monitored around the clock by specialists in obstetrics, pediatrics, neonatal nursing, respiratory therapy, physical therapy, social services and nutrition. We also have the ability to consult with neonatologists. The NICU has six beds, with one of them being an isolation bed.

What Is a Level II NICU?

A Level II NICU is also called a special care nursery. It is designed to care for babies who have moderate medical issues and are expected to recover fairly quickly.

The Level II NICU at Palmdale Regional is able to treat:

• Newborn and premature infants born at or after 32 weeks’ gestation, who weigh at least 3.3 pounds, and are stable or moderately ill
• Full-term babies who require close monitoring for low blood sugar levels and jaundice
• Newborns with problems that should resolve rapidly and are not expected to need urgent sub-specialty level services

Services Provided

Our staff is available 24/7 for ongoing care and in case of emergencies. They provide services such as respiratory support, feeding assistance, treating infections, and more. They can provide assisted or mechanical ventilation on a short-term basis, preferably under 24 hours. Babies who require mechanical ventilation longer than 24 hours will be transferred to a higher level of care. Specialized infant equipment used in the NICU includes incubators to keep babies warm, ventilators or nasal tubes to help babies breathe easier, and monitors to track vital signs and alert staff to your baby’s needs.

As you visit your baby each day, you'll talk most often with the NICU nurses to check your child's progress, or to find out about the latest developments and customized treatment plans. The length of your baby's stay in the NICU will depend on several factors. These include the severity of illness, weight, gestational age and the readiness of you and your family to provide care at home.

Watch this video to learn more about our Level II NICU.

Meet the NICU Medical Director

Jeff Gill, MD, MBA, a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and Senior Fellow in Hospital Medicine, has thirty years of clinical practice focused on newborns and children. He is board certified in Pediatrics and Pediatric Hospital Medicine. He is especially interested in improving systems of health care delivery, supporting successful communication among health care professionals, and in taking the mystery out of hospital care when he works with families. He has extensive experience in the start-up of new programs for newborns and children in community hospitals.

Dr. Gill earned his undergraduate degree from Stanford University, his medical degree from the University of California San Diego and completed his pediatric residency at Kaiser Hospital in Oakland, California. He earned his MBA degree at the University of California Irvine.