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Learning you’re pregnant is an exciting moment. As you progress through your prenatal care, you may hear or learn things about your baby that could raise your concern and worries. These can often be identified by ultrasound and can include many findings.
Rest assured that the pediatric and surgery specialists at UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital are there for you. At UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital we provide a multi-disciplinary approach to care and health outcomes to mothers and their unborn babies who have been diagnosed with/or is suspected to a fetal anomaly health condition. UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital is the destination for fetal care where the care provided is of the highest caliber.
We are committed to caring for you and your baby long before they are born. The physicians at UF Health will be with you every step of the way, from diagnosis to prenatal care, through delivery and discharge home.
Our team is made up of the following highly trained fetal specialists that include:
Please choose one of the following phone numbers to schedule an appointment based on you and your baby’s health care needs.
For pediatric cardiology, please call (352) 273-7770.
For maternal fetal care, please call (352) 265-8200.
For neonatal-perinatal medicine, please call (352) 273-8985.
For pediatric neurosurgery, please call (352) 273-6990.
For pediatric surgery, please call (352) 265-8800.
We will sit down with you and explain everything you need to know, to put your mind at rest and heart at ease. We will go through explanations of what findings there are, what they mean and could mean, and what can be done about them. We will sit down with you in consultation, explain procedures, and walk you through the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) where your baby will be cared for. We do all of this to minimize the uncertainty of the process and make you feel as familiar as possible with what to expect.
Fetal anomaly is another word for birth defects and in some cases referred to as a congenital disorder. Many birth defects occur randomly and unfortunately not all birth defects can be prevented. While birth defects could be the result of one or more factors including genetic changes that occur in families or spontaneously, nutrition factors, environmental elements or uncontrolled health conditions, much is not known about the exact causes of birth defects.
Common birth defects include heart defects, cleft lip and cleft palate, neural tube defects and spina bifida.
At UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital, our team of experts our experienced in managing pregnancies complicated by fetal birth defects. Our team can provide prenatal testing through a variety of techniques to identify birth defects including blood tests to assess the risk of certain abnormalities and ultrasounds to look for structural birth defects, which are physical abnormalities of a body part.
Our doctors are here to provide complete, high-quality and compassionate care to you and your family in order to improve the life of children born with birth defects.
Besides what you see when you meet with us, rest assured that we are also working behind the scenes in a multidisciplinary approach to best care for your baby. Our team of clinical specialists, radiologists, pathologists, social workers, nutritionists and more will meet to discuss and provide the care your baby needs.
We are proud to show that our neonatology program, pediatric surgery program, maternal fetal medicine program and congenital heart center have earned awards and are nationally recognized for extraordinary care.
Find comfort and reassurance in knowing your infant is receiving the best care possible at UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital. Our compassionate, expert team of neonatologists is why UF Shands Health Children’s hospital’s neonatology specialty program ranks among the nation’s best, according to the 2023-24 U.S. News & World Report Rankings.
Excellent care is at the heart of what we do, that’s why UF Health Shands Children’s Hospital is named as one of the nation’s best pediatric cardiology and heart surgery specialty programs, according to the 2023-24 U.S. News & World Report Rankings.
University of Florida Health Shands Children’s Hospital has been verified by the American College of Surgeons as a Level 1 pediatric trauma center, one of fewer than 20 in the nation to earn the distinction. The verification means that the hospital meets the ACS’s highest standards for staff, resources and equipment to optimally handle a child’s life-threatening injuries.
Some of the fetal care diagnoses we specialize in are:
