ABSTRACT
There have been two important influences on the pattern of NNU admission. First, a series of reports starting with Prevention of Prematurity and the Care of Premature Infants1, continuing with the important Report of the Expert Group on Special Care Babies ('Sheldon Report,2), and culminating in the House of Commons Social Services Committee Report on Perinatal and Neonatal Mortality ('Short Report'3), have focused attention on the problems of death and handicap arising in the perinatal period, and have made many recommendations, including the development of NNUs, with the aim of improving perinatal care. Secondly, in the last two decades the specialty of neonata10gy has appeared and special and intensive care baby units providing sophisticated care for critically ill, low birthweight infants have been developed, in part encouraged and supported by the official publications alluded to above. Having built, equipped and staffed these units, which in the interest of simplicity we will call neonatal units, there is a temptation to keep them full, otherwise they will constantly be under threat of closure; there is a clear correlation between cot provision and the number of infants admitted to NNUs.4,5
We believe that there is a major need to assess the reasons why babies are admitted to NNUs. We have done this by addressing ourselves to two questions, neither of which has been adequately discussed in the aforementioned official reports:
literature to define a population of neonates who unequivocably would benefit from admission to a NNU?
