A£400,000 centre, offering the very best care to mums-to-be and their unborn babies has opened at Southend Hospital, thanks to a worldrenowned doctor Professoressor Kypros Nicolaides, a leading specialist in the care of the unborn, has funded the unit through his charitable foundation.

The new fetal medicine unit allows doctors to assess the growth of unborn babies, monitor their health and spot illnesses and abnormalities.

Until now, many mums-to-be with possible problems have been referred to Professoressor Nicolaides’ world-renowned King’s College Fetal Medicine Centre, in London.

The new unit is affiliated to the London centre, offering women the very best treatment right on their doorsteps, with their families close to hand to support them.

On a visit to the unit yesterday, Professoressor Nicolaides said: “The fetal care service we give is of a very high-level. It’s great we are able to provide that locally.

“We have had the support of management and local clinicians in a long-term collaboration over the years with Kings, where patients are sent for some investigations.

The local hospital has also taken part in research projects to improve care and standards.”

Professor Nicolaides added: “Since starting the foundation, it has been my goal to create a unit to bring all these services together.

Women will benefit from local services of the same very high standards as one of the best units in the world.

“The unit will be working closely with Kings on new developments that arise from research.”

He said the foundation was grateful to local women who had already helped with research projects, adding: “Without their support we would not have been able to advance our understanding of the problems in pregnancy and our attempts to find a solution to the problems.”

The Southend unit has seven scanning rooms, each with the very latest £50,000 scanners, offering regular screening of babies as they grow.

Throughout, it has been designed as a comfortable place for mums-to-be to go for their check-ups.

It has facilities for procedures such as amniocentesis (sampling the fluid surrounding the baby in the womb) and chorionic villus sampling (taking a blood sample from the baby’s umbilical cord to check for chromosomal disorders).

It also has a counselling room where families can come to terms with what can sometimes be heart-breaking news.

Other tests pioneered by Professor Nicolaides to check for genetic abnormalities are now common in hospitals across the UK, but new techniques mean the unit’s staff hope soon to be able to check DNA via a simple blood test.

The Southend unit will also feed into the King’s College unit’s research, aimed at picking life-threatening conditions such as pre-eclampsia at an earlier stage.

However, Professor Nicolaides still feels the medical professoression has a long way to go to improve the quality of care for mums and babies before and immediately after birth. 

He explained: “Unfortunately, in England, there is a high rate of stillbirths.

Our aim is to make sure we make our stillbirth rate one of the lowest in Europe, rather than one of the highest, as it is now.

“It has taken a small amount of money here, a few hundreds of thousands of pounds – to transformaward into a beautiful unit, with an element of homeliness.

“The instructions we gave to the architect were ‘don’t let it look like another dreary hospital unit’ – but to celebrate pregnancy.

“Pregnancy is normal. It isn’t an illness and it isn’t a disease.”

It is hoped this collaboration betweenaworld-class London hospital and a local hospital will soon be copied across the country.

Professor Nicolaides said: “I hope this will act as the spark to inspire others to have similar centres under the control of a university, and working collaboratively with local hospitals to give this high level of service.

“Here, women will receive a very high standard of care locally.

“They will be seen at regular intervals in their local unit.

“There may be times when there is a serious problem which can’t be sorted out locally, and they will still go to Kings, but that number will be greatly reduced.”

 

FOR mum-to-be Suzanne Newman the new fetal unit at Southend Hospital has already proved a godsend.

Mrs Newman, of Adalia Crescent, Leigh, lost her first child last year after the baby developed a fatal kidney problem.

The condition could affect subsequent children, so Mrs Newman, 32 – now 29 weeks pregnant – is being closely monitored at the unit by fetal medicine consultant Mandeep Singh and his dedicated team.

Mrs Newman said: “When we were expecting our first baby, a late scan showed a problem with her kidneys, which was terminal.

“I went to a specialist at Kings College Hospital for a second opinion, but there was nothing they could do and our daughter was born asleep in October last year.

“There was a one in four chance of the condition recurring, so I am being scanned regularly to make sure the baby’s kidneys are all right. So far, everything is OK.

“I’ve just had my first trip to the new unit and it’s very nice.

“It is set up so that if parents do have bad news, counselling is available.

“The unit also has the best-quality scanning equipment they would have at Kings.

“I think it’s going to be really good, particularly for people who receive a difficult diagnosis. It’s good not to have to go up to London for that.

“It’s really beneficial to have such expertise in Southend. I think it's going to be really good, particularly for people who receive a difficult diagnosis. It's good not to have to go up to London for that.

"It's really beneficial to have such expertise in Southend. I think we are really priveleged here."