Hospital-Acquired Infections For Neonatal Patients - Yale Medicine Explains

Bacterial infections are the most common type of infections in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. This is because most babies in the NICU are premature and their immune systems are immature and weakened. Ten to 25 percent of the pre-term neonatal population will develop at least one infection before they leave the hospital, but the rate is more like 5 to 7 percent at Yale New Haven Children's Hospital, says Matthew J. Bizzarro, MD, a Yale Medicine neonatalogist and medical director of the NICU. Yale, he says, has one of the longest running databases on neonatal infections, dating back to 1928, which helps doctors quickly identify changes that are taking place and the types of bacteria that are causing infections.