Dr. Louis Gluck, ICU Pioneer, Dies

Services will be held today for Dr. Louis Gluck, a pioneer in neonatal and perinatal care who opened the nation’s first neonatal intensive care unit and later taught at UC Irvine. He was 73.

He died Saturday of pancreatic cancer at Saddleback Memorial Medical Center, said his son, Dr. Clifford D. Gluck of Boston.

At Stanford in 1959, the elder Gluck proved that infected and uninfected infants could be managed in the same nursery if there was proper sterilization and if nurses washed their hands between handling the infants to prevent the spread of the dreaded staphylococcus infection.

At Yale University the next year, Gluck set up the first neonatal ICU. At the same time, a perinatal service was initiated to monitor the fetus in anticipation of problems.

In 1971, Gluck first reported the “L/S ratio,” the procedure to determine fetal lung maturity and whether a baby will undergo respiratory distress during birth.

Gluck set up a neonatal ICU at the UC San Diego Hospital in 1969. In 1984, he became a pediatrics and obstetrics professor at UC Irvine. He was honored at a ceremony at UCI Medical Center in 1985 as the “father of neonatology” and for advancing the care of high-risk infants.

Gluck is survived by his wife of 50 years, Gloria, and four children. Services will be today in Gluck’s hometown of Lakewood, N.J.