Dr Lydia Kennedy
Neonatologist
Dr Lydia Kennedy provides specialist care to children in their first few years of life. She is a visiting medical specialist at Calvary North Adelaide Hospital and at Burnside War Memorial Hospital.
Dr Kennedy feels very privileged to care for children from their first ever birth day, in hospital after delivery and then in any needed follow-up care in our rooms at Paediatrics at Burnside and North Adelaide. Dr Kennedy has particular expertise in the care of preterm newborns and those with greater health care needs as well as supporting the development of healthy infants within their families. She is interested in the care of infants with typical and atypical growth, development and attachment over the first few years of life.
Dr Kennedy also works with the South Australian Paediatric and Neonatal Retrieval Service, SAAS MedSTAR Kids. Here she coordinates and performs retrievals of sick babies and children from country and metropolitan SA.
Dr Kennedy is trained in the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, and Hammersmith Infant Neurological Examination for early detection of atypical movement.
Having studied medicine and completed most of her paediatric and neonatal training in the major hospitals in South Australia, Dr Kennedy has enjoyed post-fellowship rotations at the Melbourne Royal Children’s Hospital NICU and Monash Children’s Hospital Neonatal Unit. Both are busy units and see infants referred for subspecialty input from across Victoria.
She has published papers including research on the use of cord glucose to predict the risk of low blood sugar in babies. She is an avid educator, seeing education as a means to encourage quality, evidence-based and up-to-date medicine. She is a clinical lecturer at the University of Adelaide, and is completing a post-graduate degree in medical education. She trains health professionals in resuscitation of the newborn and child.
In her spare time, Dr Kennedy is energised by spending time being active in nature and with her family and friends.
