Special Delivery Unit

The Special Delivery Unit at Cleveland Clinic Children’s offers women who are carrying babies with known birth defects a compassionate, family-centered setting for labor and delivery, with access to world-class adult and pediatric specialists. The Unit also caters to pregnant women with serious conditions such as congenital heart disease, cancer or autoimmune diseases.

The Special Delivery Unit has a labor and delivery suite, an operating room for Cesarean sections, an advanced newborn resuscitation and treatment room, and an adjoining Pediatric Cardiac Catheterization Lab. A pediatric surgical suite is located nearby. The proximity of services provides the ability to keep mom and baby together.

Women seeking emergency services for complicated pregnancies can be transferred to the Special Delivery Unit from any location across the country using Cleveland Clinic’s Critical Care Transport Service.

Our multidisciplinary team of maternal-fetal medicine, neonatology, geneticists and pediatric surgery specialists treat a number of fetal conditions, including:

Abdominal wall defects
Congenital heart defects
Open neural tube defects
Congenital diaphragmatic hernia
Hydrocephalus and other CNS lesions
Kidney and urinary tract malformations
Twin-twin transfusion syndrome
Skeletal dysplasia

Mothers with congenital heart disease, cancer or autoimmune diseases may also benefit from the expertise our maternal-fetal medicine team can provide during their baby’s delivery.

From initial consultation through delivery and the postpartum period, the Special Delivery Unit team offers support and coordinated services for both mom and baby. As part of the Fetal Care Center, the Special Delivery Unit provides moms, unborn babies and newborns advanced diagnostic and treatment options from fetal MRI and in utero intervention to immediate newborn surgery. And, a full spectrum of subspecialty care is available to moms with serious diseases that may complicate labor and delivery.

Pediatric Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory

Our Pediatric Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory offers immediate lifesaving intervention for newborns with heart defects such as hypoplastic left heart syndrome, transposition of the great vessels and pulmonary atresia.

Pediatric Surgical Suites

State-of-the-art minimally invasive Pediatric Surgical Suites allow emergency procedures to be performed shortly after birth.

Neonatology (NICU)

A Level III NICU offers sophisticated care and 24/7 coverage by in-house Board Certified neonatologists. Therapeutic hypothermia, nutritional support, continuous EEG monitoring and advanced modes of ventilation and ECMO are offered.

Neonatal Neuro-Intensive Care

A Neonatal Neuro-Intensive Care service is specially geared for newborns with intractable seizures, neurometabolic disease, neuromuscular disorders, hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy and other neurological/neurosurgical problems.