$100 million to Children’s Hospital

The Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford has received a $100 million gift from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation to modernize the obstetric and neonatal facilities at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford.

This will enable the top 10-rated children’s hospital in the nation, and the centerpiece of Stanford Medicine Children’s Health, to deliver an unparalleled level of care and fund new facilities to increase access for expectant mothers and babies from throughout California and beyond.

“We are honored to partner with the David and Lucile Packard Foundation to grow our ability to deliver the strongest possible start for expectant moms and their babies,” says Paul King, CEO and president of Stanford Medicine Children’s Health. “Every year, some 4,400 newborns are welcomed into the world at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford. With this gift, the environment before, during, and after birth will match the already extraordinary level of care.”

The neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) will transition from having large, open rooms—which typically hold up to 10 babies, their parents and care teams, and medical equipment—to private rooms where parents can stay with their babies. Recent research shows that private NICU rooms reduce mortality, shorten hospital stays, lessen parental depression, and lower babies’ infection rates, as well as promote breastfeeding, family bonding, and parental involvement in care.

“I am incredibly proud that our hospital ranks among the top in the nation for neonatology because of the world-class care we provide to our sickest babies,” says David K. Stevenson, MD, neonatologist at Stanford Medicine Children’s Health; senior associate dean for maternal and child health; and Harold K. Faber, Professor of Pediatrics at the School of Medicine. “In designing the hospital, Lucile Salter Packard had the then-revolutionary idea of keeping newborns with other children—and mothers with their babies. That decision catapulted Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford ahead of every other children’s hospital in the country, and this gift could do the same.

This new gift brings total giving from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation to the hospital to $614 million, making the Bay Area foundation the single largest philanthropic supporter of Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford and one of the biggest funders of children’s hospitals in the nation.