The UAB Critical Care Transport team evacuated eleven babies from Tulane University Medical Center Sunday night in the wake of Hurricane Gustav.

There were two flights; the first flight landed at approximately 7:30 p.m., the other after 9 p.m Sunday night, Aug. 31

The babies were brought to Birmingham on a Critical Care Transport aircraft, a Cessna Citation Bravo jet and a Lear jet, which are essentially flying intensive care units with advanced life saving equipment on board and that can carry a team of physicians, RN's, neonatal nurse practitioners and respiratory therapists.

Four babies are in UAB Hospital; 7 babies were transferred via ambulance or Children's Hospital CareFlight helicopter to other hospitals in the Birmingham area.

The parents of the other three babies brought to UAB are in Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas. UAB nurses and physicians are in daily telephone contact with these parents.

UAB Hospital houses the only full service Level III Regional Neonatal Intensive Care Unit/Continuing Care Nursery (RNICU/CCN) in Alabama, with neonatologists on staff in the hospital 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The under construction UAB Women and Infants Center, scheduled to open in 2010 will house a new RNICU/CCN. With this facility, UAB will be one of the largest RNCU/CCN units in the country and one of the first hospitals in the Southeast to offer single room neonatal intensive care.