The neonatal intensive care unit (NICU): what is it?
A neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is a hospital intensive care unit that specialises in looking after premature and sick newborn babies.
NICUs have specialist doctors, nurses, other professionals and equipment to care for sick and premature babies.
When babies don’t need the specialist care and equipment of the NICU anymore, they move to the special care nursery.
What a NICU looks like
The first time you go into a NICU, it can feel overwhelming.
At the entrance, you’ll see a series of taps or antibacterial hand gel dispensers. You need to wash your hands with sterilising soap for several minutes before you go in. Babies in NICUs can very easily catch infections, and proper hand-cleaning cuts the risk of this happening.
The NICU might have periods when the lights are dimmed and it’s quiet. This is because babies in the NICU can be overwhelmed by too much noise and light.
Most babies will have either a heated open cot or a covered incubator. These keep their bodies at the right temperature.
Depending on what medical support babies need in the NICU, there might be:
- ventilators to help with breathing
- machines to give measured amounts of fluids and medicines to the babies through tubes going into their veins
- monitors attached to the babies with cords to measure heart rate, breathing and the amount of oxygen in their blood
- special cooling beds to help reduce brain injury in babies who have had a difficult birth.
All of this technology and machinery keeps the babies comfortable, with as little extra handling as possible.
Other large machines are brought into the NICU when they’re needed. These might include machines to:
- take X-rays and ultrasounds
- monitor brain function
- give babies treatment under lights, or phototherapy, for jaundice.
The NICU is usually a calm place, with nurses and doctors quietly looking after the babies and other specialists coming in and out. Monitors will sound to alert the staff if a baby’s breathing or heart rate is out of the normal range.