[The duration and extent of intensive therapy for newborns]

The aim of the study is to evaluate the duration, the extent and the complications of the intensive care of neonates, treated in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of DUB "Maĭchin Dom" Sofia. Included retrospectively are all 383 neonates, admitted in the NICU for 1995, classified as mature--131, premature stage I--70, stage II--75, stage III--71 and stage IV--36 babies. The duration of the stay is increasing progressively according their weight: from 4 days for the mature children to 15.6 and 18.4 respectively for the newborns with very low and extremely low birth weight. The latter two groups have considerably higher need of ventilatory support (respectively 52.1% and 86.1% of them are ventilated) and higher mean duration of the ventilation--242 and 271 hours. Although they represent 28% of the patients in the NICU, the babies weighting below 1500 g accumulate 74% (17,347 hours) of the whole sum of ventilatory hours in the unit. They also develop more complications due to the immaturity and the assisted ventilation--pneumothorax, bronchopulmonary dysplasia etc. A conclusion is to be made, that the charge of a NICU is due mainly to the premature infants with very low and extremely low birth weight. These babies and the amount of ventilatory support in the unit (as total number of ventilatory hours and ventilated children) can serve as criteria for the extent of loading of the NICU.