Admission to a special care nursery or neonatal intensive care unit
Babies are admitted to a special care nursery (SCN) or neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) if they require more specialised medical care and treatment than is available on the postnatal ward. Data are limited to liveborn babies who were born in hospital and discharged home and may not include babies who were transferred between hospitals and then admitted to an SCN or NICU.
For more information on admission to SCN or NICU, see Admission to a special care nursery or neonatal intensive care unit in Australia's mothers and babies.
Research suggests that babies were more likely to require admission to SCN or NICU if their mothers had a positive case of COVID-19 at the time they gave birth (Gurol-Urganci et al. 2021; Smith et al. 2023; Wei et al. 2021).
Given Australia’s low infection rates early in the pandemic, babies born in Australia were less likely than babies born in countries with higher infection rates to require admission to SCN or NICU due to maternal COVID-19 infection.
Figure 33 presents data on admission to SCN or NICU. Data exclude New South Wales and Western Australia (as data are not available), and South Australia (as data are not available for the entire trend period).
Figure 33: Proportion of live births, by admission to SCN or NICU and state and territory of birth, 2015 to 2021
Line graph shows admission to SCN or NICU by state and territory of birth between 2015 and 2021.
Between 2015 and 2019, the proportion of liveborn babies who were admitted to the SCN or NICU increased (from 17.0% in 2015 to 18.1% in 2019). Modelling showed that this was an annual increase of 0.3 percentage points. The observed proportion of liveborn babies who were admitted to the SCN or NICU was 18.3% in 2020 and 17.2% in 2021, which was lower than the predicted proportions based on the modelling (18.8% in 2020 and 19.1% in 2021). This equated to around 4,260 fewer babies requiring specialised care in a SCN or NICU than predicted in 2020 and 2021 combined.
Data for modelling exclude 'Not stated' data and therefore may not match the proportions presented in the data visualisation above. For more information on modelling the trend over time, see Methods.
Gurol-Urganci I, Jardine JE, Carroll F, Draycott T, Dunn G, Fremeaux A, Harris T, Hawdon J, Morris E, Muller P, Waite L, Webster K, van der Meulen J and Khalil A (2021) ‘Maternal and perinatal outcomes of pregnant women with SARS-CoV-2 infection at the time of birth in England: national cohort study’, Am J Obstet Gynecol, 225(5):522, doi:10.1016/j.ajog.2021.05.016
Smith ER, Oakley E, Grandner GW, Ferguson K, Farooq F, Afshar Y, Ahlberg M, Ahmadzia H, Akelo V, Aldrovandi G, Tippett Barr BA, Bevilacqua E, Brandt JS, Broutet N, Fernández Buhigas I, Carrillo J, Clifton R, Conry J, Cosmi E, Crispi F, Crovetto F, Delgado-López C, Divakar H, Driscoll AJ, Favre G, Flaherman VJ, Gale C, Gil MM, Gottlieb SL, Gratacós E, Hernandez O, Jones S, Kalafat E, Khagayi S, Knight M, Kotloff K, Lanzone A, Le Doare K, Lees C, Litman E, Lokken EM, Laurita Longo V, Madhi SA, Magee LA, Martinez-Portilla RJ, McClure EM, Metz TD, Miller ES, Money D, Moungmaithong S, Mullins E, Nachega JB, Nunes MC, Onyango D, Panchaud A, Poon LC, Raiten D, Regan L, Rukundo G, Sahota D, Sakowicz A, Sanin-Blair J, Söderling J, Stephansson O, Temmerman M, Thorson A, Tolosa JE, Townson J, Valencia-Prado M, Visentin S, von Dadelszen P, Adams Waldorf K, Wei SQ, Bilodeau-Bertrand M, Liu S and Auger N (2021) ‘The impact of COVID-19 on pregnancy outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis’, CMAJ, 193(16):540-548, doi:10.1503/cmaj.202604.
Whitehead C, Yassa M and Tielsch JM (2023) ‘Adverse maternal, fetal, and newborn outcomes among pregnant women with SARS-CoV-2 infection: an individual participant data meta-analysis’, BMJ Glob Health, 8(1):9495, doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2022-009495.