Miami Proud On The Front Line: Neonatologist On Delivering Babies During Coronavirus Pandemic
MIAMI (CBSMiami) -- Our weekly Miami Proud reports are now focusing on those on the front lines of the coronavirus battle, in their own words.
Jorge Perez, MD. is a neonatologist and co-founder of Kidz Medical Services. His practice helps deliver 350 newborn babies a month.
"As a neonatologist, my job is keeping mothers and babies safe. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, our hospital has been working on guidelines to treat mothers, newborns and the unborn.
Since I have been doing this for over 30 years you know I've seen, I've been through a lot of deliveries. I've been part of a lot of welcoming family members, new family members. We always get invited to either parties, communion bar mitzvahs, so it's been very nice.
One of the things that we had to implement was a very restrictive visitation policy and because of that, you know, only the Dad was able to attend they delivery. As we all know these are once-in-a-lifetime events and it was difficult at the time not having more than just a father present. Not having grandparents, uncles and aunts but at the time we thought it would be the best care possible. Now we can deliver newborns with moms and dads because we also didn't know enough about this evolving condition. We wanted to keep our front line workers safe and because of that we had to implement various restrictive policies but I think that's good that we did that so early on. I think that we were able to keep people safe."
We feel very comfortable, to at least have been a small participant, in trying to keep people healthy not only the mom, but the baby as well.
I thought that what better time to take care of somebody is at the beginning of life rather than the end of life. We play a very small role in making sure that these children, maximizing not only their health but their well-being. It's been great."