Here at Saint Joseph's Children's NICU, we have been doing baby transports since we opened our doors in 1969. Back then, we used the city of Marshfield ambulance service to travel to other hospitals to pick up sick babies and bring them back to Marshfield.

Since 1993, Saint Joseph's Hospital has had it's own transport service--the Spirit Medical Transportation Service--which offers both helicopter and ground ambulance services. Saint Joseph's Children's Hospital now uses "Spirit" as its primary transport service.

We transport sick babies from more than 20 counties in central and northern Wisconsin, as well as the upper peninsula of Michigan. Babies delivered in hospitals in Stevens Point, Wausau, Rhinelander and Rice Lake, to Mauston, Wild Rose, Eau Claire, and Iron Mountain, Mich. have benefitted from our years of experience.

Our certified NICU Transport Nursing Team has more than 118 combined years of neonatal transport experience (and more than 200 combined years of Level III NICU nursing experience). All of these transport nurses are certified in neonatal intubation, umbilical line placement and needle aspiration of the chest (life saving procedures used to stabilize babies for and during transport).

The NICU transport team consists of a specially trained registered nurse, respiratory therapist, flight crew registered nurse and/or paramedic, and pilot. One or more of the members are certified in NRP, PALS, and ACLS.
In Wisconsin, we are one of a select few NICU transport teams that will transport an infant using Nitric Oxide and Selective Total Body Cooling.