Established in 1985, the Pediatric First Department (Neonatal Care Center) of the Chongqing Health Center for Women and Children (Women and Children's Hospital of Chongqing Medical University), or CQHCWC, is a national-level specialty of neonatal health care, a national-level coordination base for the standardized training of neonatal specialist physicians, and also the critically ill neonatal treatment center in Chongqing. It comprises 126 patient beds, including 30 Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) ones.

The department has a premature infant inpatient area (including wards for ultra-premature infants with a gestational age<28 weeks, wards for extremely premature infants with a gestational age<32 weeks, and those for mid-to-late premature infants), an intensive care unit (including neonatal surgical intensive care units), a general inpatient area and family wards. It receives more than 5,000 patient visits annually, offering treatment of complex cases, critically ill newborns, and premature babies.

In recent years, the department's neonatal care level has been comprehensively improved, thanks to Sino-German medical exchange and cooperation projects. The perinatal medical center with neonatology and obstetrics as the core has become the first in the country to implement transitional management technology in the delivery room for premature infants, dramatically improving the survival rate and life quality.

At present, the survival rate of ultra-premature infants (gestational age<28 weeks/birth weight<1,000 grams) at the center reaches 85 percent, and that of highly premature infants (gestational age<32 weeks/birth weight<1,500 grams) is over 95 percent. The minimum gestational age of preterm infants successfully treated at the department is 24 weeks, and the lowest birth weight is 490 grams, ranking first-class in China.

The incidence of severe complications (intracranial hemorrhage, bronchopulmonary dysplasia, retinopathy of prematurity, hospital infection, etc.) that severely affect the survival quality of ultra/highly premature infants is significantly lower than the average level of 70 tertiary NICUs nationwide.

The department has extensively conducted international and domestic exchanges, cooperation, and scientific research. In the past three years, nine department staff members have spoken at European/German academic conferences. It has also successfully held the Yangtze-Rhine Neonatal-Perinatal Forum for four consecutive years, a national-level continuing medical education project.

In the past five years, 20 scientific research projects have been established, including 13 at the provincial-ministerial level, four at the bureau-director level, and three at the hospital level. It won third prize in the Chongqing Medical Association Medical Science and Technology Award and obtained a national patent. It has also compiled one expert consensus and published six papers collected by the Science Citation Index (SCI) and 13 by the Chinese Science Citation Database (CSCD).

Area of expertise:

The department is the first in China to carry out the transition stabilization and resuscitation technology for premature infants up to international standards and the safe transfer technology in the hospital, establishing the domestic leading delivery room NICU and mobile NICU. In Chongqing, it takes the lead in carrying out neonatal hemofiltration dialysis, plasma exchange, and continuous renal replacement therapy technology in NICU, as well as neonatal fiberoptic bronchoscopy technology, bedside critical ultrasound examination technology implemented by neonatologists and ultrasound-guided center intravenous catheterization, and developmentally supportive care and systematic follow-up management of high-risk infants, which all continuously improved the success rate of treatment and long-term survival quality for critically ill newborns and ultra/extremely premature infants.

Experts of Pediatric First Department