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Home › Articles › Preemies › A Tour of the NICU

A Tour of the NICU

Everything You Need to Know About the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

By Katherine Bontrager

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Regardless of whether you have a private room or are in more of a "fishbowl" setting, there are certain things you can expect to be similar.

"When parents enter the NICU nursery, they'll come to an entryway or area that has sinks to wash their hands," Wade says. "Many NICUs require parents to do an initial three-minute 'scrub' before going into the nursery and wash hands in between visits, the same as staff. Infection control is one of our primary concerns and hand washing is our primary defense."

Layouts vary, but Wade says that most NICUs host a family lounge area, a lactation room for breastfeeding moms, a clerk's desk, family care or rooming-in room(s) for those getting ready to go home, equipment rooms and consultation rooms for family conferences.

"Walking through the actual nursery, parents are going to encounter a lot of technology – including isolettes, warmers, bassinettes, ventilators, ECMO pumps, high-frequency ventilators, monitors, transilluminators and bedside lab testing devices," Wade says. "And unlike the newborn nursery, they won't hear babies; instead they'll hear the beeping of monitors and alarms going off. It's natural for it to feel somewhat intimidating at first, but as parents learn what to expect, they soon become comfortable."

Most NICUs will offer various bed types, Wade says. "Warmers are flat, open beds used to admit babies for surgeries and procedures," she says. "Isolettes, also known as incubators, are used to help control the baby's temperature and help babies gain weight until they're big enough to do it themselves. Bassinettes are the same type of beds as those used in the newborn nursery and are for bigger babies and those getting ready to go home. Another bed being utilized in NICUs today is the omnibed, which is a combination warmer and isolette. These state-of-the-art beds decrease the number of times you have to move a baby back and forth between a warmer and isolette when they're premature. All NICUs have monitors, IV pumps and syringe pumps."


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