Restricting visitors to the newborn intensive care reduces viral infections in babies

What is it about?

Viral coughs and colds are common. In ill newborn infants, particularly those born prematurely, they can have a significant impact on their breathing. In many cases, the infants need additional respiratory support and can end up with more lung disease when they go home. Normal visiting to many neonatal units allows parents, family and friends but these can be carriers of viral respiratory infections. By only allowing parents to visit during the winter months when a worldwide flu outbreak was occurring, we observed a 39% reduction in the number of cases of viral respiratory infections in our babies. This reduction could avoid long-term respiratory problems for babies and save the healthcare services significant amounts of extra-care costs.

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Why is it important?

Premature babies have very fragile lungs. When they get an viral infection their lungs can be damaged more resulting in longer hospital stays, more breathing support and more babies go home needing oxygen. By reducing the number of visitors to a newborn intensive care we can reduce the numbers of these types of infections and improve the babies outcomes.