Women & Infants Hosts Professional Conference on Single-Family Room Model of Newborn Intensive Care

Online, March 8, 2010 (Newswire.com) - Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island is hosting a professional conference entitled "Millennium Neonatology: Building for the Future" on Thursday, April 29, 2010 from 7:30 am to 5 pm at the Women & Infants' Education Center, 101 Dudley Street, Providence, RI.

In September 2009, Women & Infants opened the South Pavilion, featuring the nation's largest, single-family room NICU. In this conference, an outstanding faculty of nationally renowned professionals will describe the single-family room model for newborn intensive care.

"The single-family room design, the future of NICU care, fosters an environment that is sensitive to the needs of the baby and promises to have a profound effect on the recovery, growth and long-term outcome of a tiny infant," said James F. Padbury, MD, pediatrician-in-chief at Women & Infants Hospital and Oh-Zopfi Professor of Pediatrics and Perinatal Biology at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.

At this conference, the design considerations and implications for integrated care of high-risk newborns will be explored. Gene environment interactions and the epigenetic and biological mechanisms that may explain the long-term effects of the environment of care on neurodevelopmental outcomes will be examined.

Speakers at the conference include James Padbury, MD; Robert D. White, MD, clinical assistant professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine and director of the Regional Newborn Program at Memorial Hospital of South Bend; Barry M. Lester, PhD, professor of psychiatry and human behavior and pediatrics at the Alpert Medical School and director of the Brown Center for the Study of Children at Risk at Women & Infants Hospital; Moshe Szyf, PhD, professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at McGill University; Scott D. Berns, MD, MPH, FAAP, clinical professor of pediatrics at the Alpert Medical School and senior vice president of Chapter Programs for the March of Dimes National Office; William H. Edwards, MD, professor and vice chair of pediatrics at Dartmouth Medical School and chief of neonatology at Children's Hospital at Dartmouth Medical School; Richard J. Schanler, MD, professor of pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and chief of neonatal-perinatal medicine at Schneider Children's Hospital at North Shore; and Laura R. Ment, MD, professor of pediatrics and neurology and associate dean at Yale University School of Medicine.

In addition to the presentations, exhibitors and poster presenters will share the latest in research, technological products and services available to health care professionals caring for perinatal and neonatal patients.

The target audience for this event includes all health care providers responsible for perinatal and neonatal care. Women & Infants designates this educational activity for a maximum of 4.75 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™. This program has been approved for 7.5 contact hours. Women & Infants Hospital is an approved provider of continuing education by the Rhode Island State Nurses' Association, an accredited approver by the American Nurses Credentialing Center's Commission on Accreditation.

For more information, please contact Mary Tucker at (401) 274-1122, extension 1205 or at mtucker@wihri.org, or visit womenandinfants.org/millenniumsymposium.

Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island, a Care New England hospital, is one of the nation's leading specialty hospitals for women and newborns. The primary teaching affiliate of The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University for obstetrics, gynecology and newborn pediatrics, Women & Infants is the seventh largest obstetrical service in the country with more than 9,000 deliveries per year. In 2009, Women & Infants opened the country's largest, single-family room neonatal intensive care unit.

Women & Infants has been designated as a Breast Center of Excellence from the American College of Radiography; a Center for In Vitro Maturation Excellence by SAGE In Vitro Fertilization; and a Neonatal Resource Services Center of Excellence. It is one of the largest and most prestigious research facilities in high risk and normal obstetrics, gynecology and newborn pediatrics in the nation, and is a member of the National Cancer Institute's Gynecologic Oncology Group. The hospital was named Rhode Island's Best Place to Work by Providence Business News and a National Center of Excellence in Women's Health by the federal government. For information about Women & Infants, log on to womenandinfants.org, and for the name of a physician on the Women & Infants' staff, call the Health Line at 1-800-921-9299.