Infection Control In Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

1. Infection Control in
Neonatal Intensive Care
Unit
By: Honida juwili

3. Introduction
Newborn babies who need intensive medical attention
are often admitted
into a special area of the hospital called the Neonatal
Intensive Care Unit
(NICU). The NICU combines advanced technology and
trained health
care professionals to provide specialized care for the
tiniest patients.
NICUs may also have intermediate or continuing care
areas for babies
who are not as sick but do need specialized nursing
care
Some newborn babies will require care in a NICU, and
giving birth to a
sick or premature baby can be quite unexpected for any

4. Host risk factors for infection in newborns include
Low birth weigh-
Acuity of underlying illness-
Immature immune system-
Permeable skin-

5. Some studies have shown, type of infection in newborn
1- Bacterial infection
**Gram positive infections
Staphylococcus aureus-
Strepto pyogenes-
**Gram negative infections
E.coli-
Pseudomonas-
Neisseria meningitides-

6. 2-Viral infections
- Hepatitis
HIV-
Herpes-
3-Fungal infections:
Candidiasis-
4-Parasitic infections
-Toxoplasmosis

7. According to provincial infectious diseases advisory
committee (PIDAC)
The types of infection transmission are:
1-contact transmission
*Direct contact: occurs through touching the patient ex,
colonized or
infected microorganism from staff.
*Indirect contact: occurs when microorganism
transferred from patient to
patient via contaminated objects or the contaminated
hands of health care
provider.

8. 2-Droplet transmission
wborns known or suspected of having an infection that can
mitted by large respiratory droplets such as cough or sneez
travels for up to two meters
le of microorganisms transmitted by droplet transmission in
atory tract viruses (e.g. Adenovirus, influenza and Para influ
ses, rhinovirus, RSV), rubella, mumps and Bordetella pertu

9. 3-Airborne transmission
Airborne transmission occurs when airborne particles
remain suspended
in the air, travel on air currents and are then inhaled by
others who are
nearby or who may be some distance away from
newborns or if there have been insufficient air exchange.
The only microorganisms transmitted by the airborne
rout are
Mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB), varicella virus
(chickenpox virus) and
measles virus.

10. Aims
This paper is aimed to:
- Control and prevention nosocomial
infection in neonatal intensive care unit
(NICU).
-Provide and identify hospital and health
care facilities policy information.

11. infection control precaution
*staff precaution:
1-Hand hygiene:
Removal of visible soil and microorganism.
Five moments for hand hygiene:
- before touching the patient.
- before clean/aseptic procedure.
- after body fluid exposure risk.
- after touching the patient.
- after touching the patient surroundings.

12. *Impediments to effective hand hygiene:
- Accessories
- long nail
- nail polish
- artificial nail

15. 2- Personal protective equipment "PPE"
- gloves
- gowns
- facial protection
- caps
- boots
Personal protective equipment (PPE) is worn to prevent
transmission of
microorganisms from patient to patient and from patient
to staff or from
staff to patient.
To protect newborns health unit care staff should take
necessary
vaccinations that effect them (measles ,mumps
,rubella, pertussis
,varicella , hepatitis B and influenza vaccine).

17. *Environmental precautions:
Observe cleaning in unit care environment
is important to newborns
safety ,staff and visitors.
Daily cleaning and disinfection the
environment surface should be in
frequent period.

18. *Equipment precautions:
The medical equipment should be
clean and sterilized.
The cleaning and disinfection of the
equipment on consistent basis
following with cleaning methods and
instructions for equipment.

19. *visitor precautions:
For safe visit to the newborns and spending time or
checking on them
should occur depending on some considerations:
- Limiting number of visitors.
- visitors or family members should not visit if they have
signs and
symptoms of being ill or unwell, such as:
•Fever
•cough or influenza
•runny nose
•vomiting or diarrhea
•rash
•conjunctivitis.
- hand hygiene before and after visiting.
- the visitor should be wearing personal protective

20. *Patient precautions:
- neonatal skin care :
Bathing
- management of central venous catheters
- management of peripheral arterial
catheters
- management of umbilical artery and vein
catheters
- prevention of ventilator associated
pneumonia

21. Recommendations
To provide a clean and safe neonatal intensive care unit
Along with hospital infection control policy reviewed for
newborn babies
this paper recommended that :
*for staff:
Staff have infection illness should be excluded from
work.
Hand hygiene including : hand washing , hand rub.-
Personal protective equipment including : gloves,
gowns, boots, caps,-
masks.

22. .
*for Environment:
- clean neonatal intensive care unit at
least twice per day and additionally as
required.
- clean isolettes / warmers according to
schedule and additionally as required.
- terminally clean neonatal intensive
care unit isolette / warmer and
environment on discharge of the
newborn.
- terminally clean transport equipment
after each newborn transport.
Frequent audits of practice should be
included as part of the

23. *for equipment:
Reusable medical equipment must
be cleanable and be to able to be
disinfected or sterilized.
*for visitor:
Family members and others should
not visit if they are unwell.