About the Garbose Family Special Delivery Unit
The Garbose Family Special Delivery Unit (SDU) at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) was the world’s first birthing unit within a pediatric hospital dedicated to healthy mothers carrying babies with serious and life-threatening birth defects.
Located within the Richard D. Wood Jr. Center for Fetal Diagnosis and Treatment at CHOP, the SDU is staffed by a team of dedicated clinicians fully equipped to manage the high level of care you and your baby require before, during and after delivery.
Center leaders had long-recognized the need for a comprehensive maternal-fetal center, believing that the ability to provide the complete spectrum of care within Children’s Hospital would provide the best outcomes for patients. Because of their own experiences, the idea of creating a delivery unit within a pediatric institution struck a chord with Hospital Trustee Lynne Garbose and her husband Bill. The Garbose family provided the lead philanthropic gift to create the Special Delivery Unit.
Since opening in June 2008, more than 6,373 babies have been delivered in the CHOP Special Delivery Unit. Babies born here will either undergo fetal surgery to treat their condition before birth or need immediate specialized care or surgery soon after birth.
On the SDU, moms can stay close, and babies are treated immediately. This level of care is critically important to the well-being of babies prenatally diagnosed with complex conditions ranging from congenital diaphragmatic hernia to spina bifida.
Our services
Families from all over the world choose to deliver their babies in the Special Delivery Unit because of our expert prenatal care, customized delivery plans and extensive experience caring for babies with birth defects and their moms.
Complete obstetrical care is provided by our experienced staff of obstetricians, maternal-fetal medicine specialists, anesthesiologists, OB nurses and others. Every birth in the SDU is one-of-a-kind. Your medical team will work closely with your family to develop a birth plan that is individualized to your and your child’s specific needs.
Mothers and babies who deliver in the SDU have access to a wide variety of services in one location:
- Advanced prenatal diagnostic testing, including comprehensive genetic screening options
- Management of pregnancies complicated by birth defects
- Expert obstetrical and delivery services
- An experienced fetal surgery team
- A Newborn Stabilization and Resuscitation Team skilled in the delivery room care of babies with known congenital anomalies. This team is focused on optimizing care in the first hour of your baby's life to improve outcomes. Watch this video about the "golden hour" to learn how CHOP supports infants with congenital anomalies during the critical first hour after birth.
- A specialized Neonatal Surgical Team prepared to perform delicate surgeries immediately after your baby is born
- Support services and counseling to help with relocation issues such as housing, travel, insurance, financial matters and emotional support
- A Breastfeeding and Lactation Program
Specially designed facilities
Everything in the Special Delivery Unit — from the artwork to the room design — has been designed with the health and well-being of you and your baby in mind.
The SDU features:
- Two high-tech operating rooms equipped for fetal surgery and C-section deliveries
- Six comfortable labor, delivery, recovery and postpartum rooms where you can remain throughout your hospital stay
- Two additional postpartum rooms
- Infant stabilization rooms connected to the operating rooms and delivery suites, where the Newborn Stabilization and Resuscitation Team is ready to assist your baby immediately after birth
- Full delivery services from our highly experienced team of obstetricians, anesthesiologists, midwives and obstetric nurses
- Comfortable private space for families
- Immediate proximity to our pediatric surgical facilities, the Harriet and Ronald Lassin Newborn/Infant Intensive Care Unit, which has been consistently recognized as among the best in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, and the Evelyn and Daniel M. Tabas Cardiac Intensive Care Unit, part of the Hospital’s world-renowned Cardiac Center.
Learn more about what to expect when you deliver your baby in the SDU »
