Careers

A career as … a neonatal pharmacist

By Maiya Ahmed, MRPharmS

More premature babies, born at increasingly low gestational ages, are surviving, and so neonatal pharmacy is a rapidly growing area of practice. This article describes the role of a neonatal pharmacist

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Maiya Ahmed is neonatal pharmacist at St Mary’s Hospital, London

Babies

Babies born at low gestational ages may need to spend their first few weeks of life in an incubator

SUMMARY

Neonatal pharmacy practice is a rapidly developing area. The success of in vitro fertilisation has resulted in more multiple births, with premature babies being more likely to be born from such births. Advances in care, including medicines use, mean that babies of increasingly low gestational age are surviving — the survival rate of babies born weighing less than 1kg is currently about 80 per cent, whereas 20 years ago it was 20 per cent.

By definition, a neonate is a newborn baby up to the “corrected age” of one month. Corrected age is calculated by subtracting the number of weeks born before 40 weeks of gestation from the chronological age (the time elapsed since birth). This means that there can be four-month old babies on the neonatal unit who are still classed as neonates.

Approximately 12 per cent of births per year result in a baby needing some form of special care, and approximately 2.5 per cent of births will require some form of neonatal intensive care. This article describes the care given to such babies at St Mary’s Hospital, London.