Kara N. Leavitt, NP

Kara Leavitt is a nurse practitioner with a focus on neonatology at Utah Valley Hospital in Provo, Utah. She supports newborn patients and their families at Utah Valley Hospital, providing neonatal stabilization, managing high-risk deliveries, ventilators, specializing in care for very low birth weight and premature infants, and more. To her, the NICU is a special place, and she is honored to care for the precious infants and their families who journey through it.

As a healthcare professional, Kara is committed to providing the best care by continually enhancing her skills and knowledge while staying informed on the latest research. She believes caring for a newborn is a team effort, and every team member, including the parents, is invaluable, saying "We succeed or fail together." Kara aims to be a reliable resource for her team, fostering growth through respectful communication. She strives to deliver exceptional care during the crucial early stages of life, enabling infants to reach their full potential and thrive at home with parents who feel empowered in their caregiving role.

Kara is passionate about fostering strong parent-infant bonds and promoting parent/infant skin-to-skin contact. She is dedicated to improving neonatal outcomes through compassionate, evidence-based practice.

Kara's ability to relate to her patient comes from her own NICU experience, when her first child was born at 35 weeks and spent several weeks in the NICU. This gave her a deep understanding of the parent experience before beginning her work as a nurse. As an RN, she spent a decade as a bedside NICU before advancing to her role as a neonatal nurse practitioner.

Conditions Treated: 

• Neonatal Stabilization and resuscitation
• Managing high-risk deliveries
• Respiratory Management: managing ventilators, CPAP and oxygen therapy
• Specialized care for very low birth weight and premature infants
• Neonatal Nutrition and Growth: developing feeding plans including TPN, gavage feeding, breastmilk fortification, and supporting lactation/breastfeeding and/or bottle feeding.
• Implementing neuroprotective strategies to improve long-term outcomes
• Preventing, diagnosing, and treating neonatal sepsis, NEC, and other infections.

Procedures Performed: 

• Endotracheal Intubation
• Umbilical Catheterization 
• PICC line placement
• Lumbar puncture
• Needle Aspiration 
• Thoracostomy
• Interosseous Needle Insertion
• Peripheral Arterial Line Insertion