Study suggests private NICU rooms may influence preemies’ development

Premature babies often spend their first months of life in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) — environments that, in recent years, have seen transformations, with hospitals adding private rooms to NICUs in place of open wards. But research at the School of Medicine adds new information to the discussion over what is the optimal setting for infants in the NICU. Shown is the study’s first author, Bobbi Pineda, PhD, in the NICU at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.