Your baby's stay in the NICU

Our family-centered facilities are overseen by a caring staff of specialists that ensure both parents and babies are comfortable and at ease during a hospital stay.

Our NICUs offer:

  • A multidisciplinary team of neonatal experts. Board-certified neonatologists and nursing specialists work with other Cleveland Clinic Children’s experts, such as respiratory therapists, social workers, dietitians, lactation consultants, pharmacists, speech pathologists, psychologists and physical and occupational therapists to ensure comprehensive and individualized care is provided.
  • 24-hour parent visitation. Parents are also encouraged to attend medical rounds and other meetings concerning their baby's progress.
  • Visitation for siblings 3 and older (following a health screening by a registered nurse).
  • Transition rooms that provide parents the opportunity to "room in" with their baby prior to discharge. This allows parents to get more comfortable caring for their new baby.
  • The Ronald McDonald Family Room, an extension of the Ronald McDonald House of Cleveland, offers families a comfortable place to rest and recharge within the hospital, just steps away from their infant. 

Life after the NICU

Follow-up Clinic

Our NICU Follow-up Clinic addresses the long-term needs of children and their families who experience a range of medical and developmental disorders resulting from a premature birth or complications from an illness at birth. Research has shown that providing post-neonatal care is essential to optimizing a child’s developmental and improving their long-term outcomes. Some services the Follow-up Clinic provides are:

  • Babies born with a cleft lip associated with a cleft palate are followed in the outpatient setting after discharge by the Cleft Lip Palate and Craniofacial Anomalies Clinic.
  • Babies born with Down syndrome are followed after discharge by the Cleveland Clinic Children’s Down Syndrome Clinic. This specialty clinic provides comprehensive collaborative care for children and their families in an outpatient setting.
  • Babies born with myelomeningocele (a severe form of spina bifida) are managed after discharge by the Myelo Outpatient Clinic. This specialty clinic uses an interprofessional approach coordinated by the neonatology team and works with the neurosurgery, neurology, urology, orthopedics, gastroenterology and social work teams.

Rehabilitation services

Cleveland Clinic Children’s Hospital for Rehabilitation is the only freestanding pediatric rehabilitation hospital in Ohio, and one of only a few of its kind in the nation. Children with specific medical or developmental disorders receive individualized care through these specialty programs:

  • Behavioral health.
  • Center for autism.
  • Cerebral palsy multidisciplinary clinic.
  • Feeding disorders program.
  • Pediatric kidney dialysis.

Care for expectant mothers with complex pregnancies

Fetal Care Center

Cleveland Clinic’s Fetal Care Center cares for mothers whose pregnancies are complicated by a maternal, fetal or obstetric disorder.

Special Delivery Unit

Our Special Delivery Unit is one of a kind in Northeast Ohio. Mothers with complex medical problems of their own or those carrying fetuses with complicated medical or surgical problems can deliver at a state-of-the-art facility equipped with the most modern technology to care for both mother and baby. A hybrid cardiac catheterization laboratory and pediatric operating room are adjacent for prompt access to postnatal procedures.