Kyoto University Hospital has opened a Maternal Fetal Intensive Care Unit (MFICU) in the Maternal and Prenatal Care Unit of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology on the second floor of the North Ward, where the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) is also located. The MFICU is staffed exclusively with obstetricians and midwifes to provide highly intensive maternal care to pregnant or parturient patients with serious conditions. Maximizing the power of the university hospital covering a broad range of medical fields with the highest levels of expertise, the unit provides advanced prenatal care in close coordination with other clinical departments, such as internal medicine, emergent medicine, and neurosurgery.
Pregnancy and birth are major life events for any woman and her body, as well as for the baby in the womb. While many pregnancies go through these processes without any complications, some encounter life-threatening events for the mother or for the fetus. For example, in the event of pregnancy induced hypertension, threatened premature labor, intrauterine growth restriction, multiple pregnancies, severe complications such as connective tissue disease or diabetes, or in the case of postpartum hemorrhage, 24-hour highly intensive care becomes necessary for the mother and the baby in the womb.
Kyoto University Hospital's Maternal and Prenatal Care Unit accepts maternal transport of pregnant and puerperal women with serious conditions from all around Kyoto prefecture and neighboring areas, regardless of whether or not they are the hospital's regular outpatients. The number receiving such care has doubled in the past decade. Enhancing its intensive care system by opening the MFICU, the Hospital is committed to contributing to perinatal care in the region under the principle of "receiving all requests for maternal transport".
Staff and equipment at the MFICU
Special station staffed with experts
The unit has six beds surrounding a special station staffed with doctors and midwifes with a high degree of expertise in caring for pregnant and parturient women with serious conditions (one midwife for three patients). Stationed close to the patient beds, the doctors and midwives can provide 24-hour intensive care, reacting quickly to sudden changes in the patients' conditions.
6 private rooms with additional space
Each MFICU private bedroom measures between 17-19 m 2 , while standard rooms are 15m 2 . This spaciousness is designed to reduce patient stress, as well as to ease bedside treatment, allowing sufficient space for medical devices such as fetal heart rate monitoring devices, maternal vital signs monitors (for blood pressure, pulse, and other signs), ultrasound scanners, etc.
MFICU nurse station
A private room at the MFICU
