Specially Designed Care for Children and Adolescents

The thought of your child spending time in the hospital can be upsetting. Our cozy, comfortable Children & Adolescents' Unit at Baystate Children’s Hospital — a fully accredited hospital within Baystate Medical Center  — will ease your concerns.

Our special unit is designed to meet the needs of babies and kids from birth through age 21.

Our doctors, nurses, and other specialists create a care plan that matches your child’s developmental, physical, and emotional needs. Our care team also realizes that it’s important for your family’s needs to be met while you’re with your child. We work to provide support to your entire family during this time.

All the Comforts of Home

We provide lots of things your baby or child could need to make the hospital feel more like home, such as:

• Age-appropriate toys and activities – provided by child life specialists
• Child-sized wheelchairs and wagons
• Child-sized pajamas, or you can bring in your own
• Cribs
• Diapers
• Formula
• High chairs
• Hospital beds with safety rails
• Strollers
• Swings
• Wipes

Your Child’s Room

Your child’s room is his or her “home away from home” while in the hospital. Feel free to make it as comfortable as possible. Decorate it with your child’s artwork, cards, stuffed animals, and more.

There’s always room for you to stay the night with your child. Sleep chairs can accommodate one parent at the bedside.

You're Key to Your Child’s Care

No one knows your child better than you do. You’re an important part of your child’s care while in the hospital. We encourage you to join in the daily bedside family-centered rounds. As your child’s doctors, nurses, and other specialists work to develop a care plan, please share ideas with them about what matters most to you and your child. Tell us what you need and how you’d like to be involved in your child’s care.

Feel Better with Fun & Games 

We know that being in the hospital can be stressful and scary to a child. We’ve created play spaces that offer safe, inviting areas. These play spaces, and your child’s room, are “safe spaces” where procedures and treatments do not occur. Medical procedures only happen in treatment rooms so that children never think of “pain” in play areas or their beds.

Play and activity spaces can be found on your child’s unit. Our indoor and outdoor play deck is located at the entrance of the Infants & Children’s Unit and is a favorite spot for children and their visitors. There’s plenty of room for play, with cozy chairs and couches, books, games, and a big screen TV. Our child life specialists regularly organize activities here for kids and also take play to the child’s bedside, if needed.

The outdoor space is calming, with outdoor furniture, a children’s garden, and artwork. A resource room is also available with a computer for children who want some quiet time to do schoolwork. Video games, movies, and computers in the unit can be used in patient rooms.