[7][8] The hospital features a dedicated regional ACS designated pediatric Level 1 Trauma Center and is named after financial firm Morgan Stanley, which largely funded its construction through philanthropy.

[9] The hospital has nearly 250 years of history in treating children, tracing its roots to the establishment of Columbia University's – then King's College – Department of Pediatrics in 1767.

[11] In 1929, the hospital moved from its Lexington Avenue site to Upper Manhattan to become part of the Columbia–Presbyterian Medical Center.

"[citation needed] Since its founding, Babies Hospital physicians have helped shape the field of modern pediatrics and established numerous medical subspecialties.

[16] The hospital, which initially had only women resident physicians, had 30 beds for sick infants and children up to three years old; malnutrition was the most common diagnosis.

[17] In 1903, Dorothy Reed Mendenhall, one of the first female physicians who discovered the blood cell disorder characteristic of Hodgkin's disease, completed an internship in pediatrics at Babies Hospital.

Under his leadership, the hospital was one of the first in the country to develop programs in neonatal care, pediatric surgery, radiology, neurology, hematology-oncology, and psychiatry.

These included Dorothy Hansine Andersen (pathology), Hattie Alexander (infectious disease), William Silverman (neonatology), John Caffey (radiology), and James Wolff (Hematology-Oncology).

[25] In 1933, Hattie Elizabeth Alexander, MD, was appointed as an adjunct assistant pediatrician at Babies Hospital.

During her tenure at the hospital, she developed a cure for influenza meningitis, which reduced the mortality rate to 20 percent in children and infants.

[17] In 1940, Katharine Krom Merritt and Haig Haigouni Kasabach, pediatricians at Babies Hospital, first described a case of Kasabach-Merritt syndrome in an infant.

[28] In 1949, Conrad M. Riley and Richard Lawrence Day identified Riley-Day syndrome, a nervous system disorder affecting children of Eastern European Jewish descent mostly.

"[30] The Apgar score measures five body functions to determine the need for life-saving assistance within a minute of birth and remains the international pediatric standard for assessing newborn health.

[38] In 2009, MSCH made national news when they were able to remove and replace six organs and cut out a tumor in 7-year-old Heather McNamara.