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Statistical Evaluation of the First Year of a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Established in a Medical School Hospital

Hidehiko Narazaki¹, Makoto Watanabe¹, Makoto Migita¹, Ryuhei Kurashina², Yoshio Shima³, Makiko Mine³, Sakae Kumasaka⁴, Gen Ishikawa⁵, Takashi Yamada⁵ and Yasuhiko Itoh¹

¹Department of Pediatrics, Nippon Medical School Hospital, Tokyo, Japan
²Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Nippon Medical School Hospital, Tokyo, Japan
³Department of Neonatology, Nippon Medical School Musashikosugi Hospital, Kanagawa, Japan
⁴Department of Neonatology, Katsushika Red Cross Maternity Hospital, Tokyo, Japan
⁵Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Nippon Medical School Chiba Hokusoh Hospital, Chiba, Japan

Background: There has been significant progress in reducing perinatal mortality in Japan. However, due to changes in social conditions, the total fertility rate and the number of births are decreasing, whereas the number of low birth weight infants is increasing along with the number of newborn babies that require intensive care. Further, although the number of high-level perinatal medical centers has increased, so has that of infants who need long-term hospitalization. Conversely, the number of regular obstetric facilities has decreased, thus resulting in insufficient beds for neonatal care. To fill this gap, we established a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at our hospital. This study aimed to evaluate our new type by comparing the data from ours with that from other facilities.
Methods: The other facilities assessed were two high-level NICU facilities and two regular obstetric facilities. Data, including sex, gestational age, birth weight, Apgar scores at 1 and 5 min, delivery method, and presence of breathing disorders, were extracted from medical records.
Results: The birth weight and gestational age distributions were significantly different in the institutions, except in one facility without a NICU. The new NICU saw more infants with low birth weight and respiratory disorders than the regular obstetric facilities.
Conclusion: The comparison of birth weight and gestational age distributions, cases of respiratory disorders, and delivery methods indicate that our new NICU is positioned as an intermediate facility between a high-level NICU and a regular obstetrics facility.

J Nippon Med Sch 2021; 88: 283-290

Keywords
NICU, neonatal intensive care unit level, neonate, respiratory disorder

Correspondence to
Hidehiko Narazaki, MD, PhD, Department of Pediatrics, Nippon Medical School Hospital, 1-1-5 Sendagi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8603, Japan
nara@nms.ac.jp

Received, January 8, 2020
Accepted, May 25, 2020