RUMFORD — Serena Flagg, RN, and Amanda Tozier, RN, Rumford Hospital Birthing Center nurses, have been certified as STABLE peri-natal nurses. The certification recognizes their study and practice of the skills necessary to stabilize sick newborns or premature infants to prepare them for transport to a neonatal intensive care unit. Both nurses are also certified in advanced cardiac life support and pediatric life support. The Birthing Center’s Shandi Averill, RN, is also certified in STABLE.

Flagg has been a Birthing Center nurse for about a year. Prior to that, she worked on the Rumford Hospital medical surgical unit for four years.

Tozier has been concentrating on peri-natal nursing for three-and-a-half years. During the first few of her six years at Rumford Hospital, Tozier also worked on the medical surgical unit. Both nurses continue to work that unit when needed.

Currently, a neonatal intensive care team is called in from the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital at Maine Medical Center or from Central Maine Medical Center to transport a sick newborn by ground ambulance to a larger hospital equipped to handle infants’ acute needs. Flagg and Tozier report that LifeFlight of Maine recently acquired a neonatal incubator, so transport may be even faster in the near future.