China's Top Departments: Neonatology at the Obstetrics & Gynecology Hospital of Fudan University (Shanghai)

If you are expecting a baby and facing a high-risk pregnancy — or you are an international family preparing for a preterm birth, birth asphyxia or a low-birth-weight newborn who may need NICU care — the Department of Neonatology at the Obstetrics & Gynecology Hospital of Fudan University, affectionately known as the "Red House Hospital," offers one of Shanghai's most reassuring destinations: a specialized newborn team embedded inside one of China's strongest maternity hospitals, so that expert help is present from the very first minute of your baby's life.

About the Hospital

• The Obstetrics & Gynecology Hospital of Fudan University was founded in June 1884 with a donation from the American Margaret Williamson as the "West Gate Women and Children's Hospital" — one of China's earliest women's hospitals, and today China's first specialized OB-GYN hospital. In 1952 it became the Shanghai Medical College Obstetrics & Gynecology Hospital; it was renamed the First Shanghai Medical College Affiliated Obstetrics & Gynecology Hospital in 1955, the Shanghai Medical University Affiliated Obstetrics & Gynecology Hospital in 1985, and the Obstetrics & Gynecology Hospital of Fudan University in July 2001. In 2024 the hospital celebrated its 140th anniversary.
• A Grade-A tertiary OB-GYN specialty hospital integrating clinical care, teaching and research; named a "Baby-Friendly Hospital" in 1992 by the Ministry of Health, the World Health Organization and UNICEF.
• Scale: 820 authorized beds across two campuses — Huangpu Campus (the old campus) and Yangpu Campus (in use since 2009).
• Obstetrics & gynecology is a national key discipline; both the Department of Gynecology and the Department of Obstetrics are national key clinical specialties.
• Rated A (the highest grade) for 7 consecutive years in the National Health Commission's performance monitoring of tertiary public hospitals (obstetrics & gynecology category), and ranked No. 1 among specialty hospitals in China's hospital internet influence for 10 consecutive years.
• Research during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period: more than 300 research projects approved at bureau level or above; 2,562 papers published, including 1,617 SCI papers; 158 patents granted.

Department Overview

The Department of Neonatology was established in 1991, and a dedicated Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) was established in 2015. As a clinical department within the Grade-A tertiary OB-GYN specialty hospital, it is responsible for the medical care, health support and critical-care treatment of newborns delivered at the hospital — from healthy rooming-in babies to the most fragile preterm infants.

Expert Team

• Wang Jimei (王吉梅): chief physician and a leading expert in pediatrics (a secondary discipline) at the hospital, who heads the department.
• Luo Fei (罗飞): chief physician.
• Song Lili (宋丽丽): associate chief physician.
• The department has a highly qualified, structurally balanced and skilled clinical team: 1 chief physician, 4 associate chief physicians, 10 attending physicians and 13 resident physicians, plus more than 40 professional nurses.
• Academic appointments: the department head serves on the Chinese Medical Doctor Association's Premature Infant Specialized Committee, as a standing committee member of the China Maternal and Child Health Research Association's Infant and Toddler Mental Health Specialized Committee, and on the Chinese Medical Doctor Association's Neonatology Physicians Branch.

Scale and Service Capacity

• Patient volume: approximately 3,000 inpatient newborns treated per year.
• Critical care: the success rate for rescuing critical cases is above 95%.
• Scope of care: critically ill newborns, premature infants, very-low-birth-weight infants and even extremely-low-birth-weight infants. The department regularly conducts neonatal resuscitation drills, particularly for birth asphyxia, to reduce asphyxia-related complications.
• Rooming-in: a well-established ward-round system for rooming-in (mother-and-baby together); pediatricians perform daily routine examinations of rooming-in newborns to detect problems early, and staff provide new mothers with scientific guidance on newborn feeding and care.
• Follow-up: scheduled post-discharge outpatient follow-up and early intervention for high-risk infants.
• Antenatal collaboration: the department participates in multidisciplinary (MDT) antenatal consultations for fetal diseases, providing technical support for seamless "antenatal–intrapartum–postpartum" integrated care.

Core Strengths and Equipment

• An integrated delivery-room–NICU resuscitation and treatment system, so that critical newborns receive intensive care without delay.
• Intensive-care units and life-support technologies for the most fragile infants.
• A family-integrated care model that promotes breastfeeding and involves parents in daily care.
• Quality-control boards used to monitor and control clinical indicators.
• A high-risk infant follow-up clinic providing early intervention.
• Equipment: neonatal ventilators, high-grade premature-infant incubators, intelligent resuscitation radiant warmers, amplitude-integrated EEG (aEEG), near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and bedside ultrasound machines — enabling timely, appropriate and effective treatment of critically ill newborns, premature infants, and very-low and extremely-low-birth-weight infants.

Research and Teaching

• The department hosts the national continuing-education course "Critical Care of Critically Ill Newborns in the Delivery Room" every year, and a Neonatology Sub-forum of the Red House Forum every two years.
• It provides residency training for the hospital and has 1 master's supervisor, having trained several master's students in neonatology; team members have spoken at numerous international and domestic academic conferences, and 1 physician has participated in the China–Canada Perinatal Cooperation Network training program.
• Research: 1 National Natural Science Foundation of China Youth Fund project (completed), 1 Shanghai Municipal Health and Family Planning Commission project and 1 sub-project; over the past 5 years the team has published more than 10 SCI papers and more than 30 Chinese-language papers.

Honors

• More than 100 banners presented by grateful families over the past 4 years; repeatedly named an advanced collective of the hospital.
• Awards including the Fudan University "Women's Civilization Post", the Fudan University "Youth Civilization" title, and the Shanghai "March 8th Red Banner Collective" title.

Address and Contact

• Huangpu Campus: No. 419 Fangxie Road, Shanghai (inpatient area); gynecology outpatient clinic at No. 566 Fangxie Road; obstetrics outpatient clinic at No. 588 Fangxie Road. The Obstetrics & Neonatology Outpatient Building (No. 588 Fangxie Road) houses the obstetrics clinic area, the neonatology clinic area, the antenatal examination room and the fetal heart monitoring room on its third floor.
• Yangpu Campus: No. 128 Shenyang Road, Yangpu District, Shanghai, postcode 200090.
• Switchboard: 021-33189900; website: https://www.fckyy.org.cn

If this department interests you, you may also want to read about gynecology at the Red House and pediatric internal medicine at Children's Hospital of Fudan University.

This article is compiled from public sources; some data may vary by year or statistical scope. Please refer to the hospital's latest official announcements for schedules and figures.