Challenging Designs of Neonatal Intensive Care Units

Intensive care units expressly built for newborn infants are a relatively new type of hospital unit. As recently as 30 years ago, most neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) were located in converted patient rooms. These converted spaces were rooms strung down a hallway; their only modification was the elimination of walls to create units (Figure 1). It was not until the late 1970s and 1980s that NICUs designed and built for the specific purpose of caring for critically sick neonates became commonplace (Figure 2). These units were designed as multipatient wards.¹ Obstetric units designed at that same time were eliminating shared spaces, from the labor rooms to the postpartum rooms. Under the influence of the consumer advocacy movement in obstetrics, private labor-delivery-recovery rooms and labor-delivery-recovery-post-partum rooms appeared in the 1970s and rapidly became the norm by the end of the 1980s.² Pediatric intensive care units (PICUs)...