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UCSF Celebrates 40 Years of "Miracle Babies" on October 23

October 20, 2004
News Office: Janet Basu (415) 476-2557

WHEN: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 23

WHERE: Saunders Court, UCSF, 513 Parnassus Ave. -- follow signs from the lobby.

WHAT: 40th Anniversary of UCSF Children's Hospital's Neonatal Intensive Care Nursery -- one of the nation's first NICUs.

WHO: Nurses, doctors and staff reunite with the babies whose lives they saved and the parents who spent the first part of their children's lives at their bedsides in the high-tech world of intensive care.

The Intensive Care Nursery at UCSF Children's Hospital celebrates its 40th anniversary on Saturday, Oct. 23 with a party that reunites parents and children with the nurses, doctors and staff who cared for them when the newborns' lives were at stake. This year's reunion also celebrates the reminiscences of families and staff throughout the years.

When UCSF's Intensive Care Nursery (ICN) was founded in 1964, 40,000 premature babies died each year from a lung disorder that doctors had just begun to understand. At UCSF and a handful of centers elsewhere, doctors and nurses were just discovering the methods that now save the lives of tens of thousands of newborn babies in intensive care nurseries around the world.

In 2004, the ICN at UCSF is one of the region's top neonatal referral centers, currently treating more than 1,000 high-risk newborns each year. Its staff continues to set the standards for care of the most fragile premature infants. UCSF is the pioneer in fetal surgery and a national leader in care for babies who need surgery or other major treatments in the first hours, weeks or months after birth.

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