First-year burden of disease for babies admitted to special care nurseries: Systematic review and meta-analysis

Varnika Aggarwal; Hayley T Cron; Marcus Di Sipio; Sue Liu; Katie McBain; Kieran Mckenna; Jeanie L Y Cheong; Jing Wang

doi:10.1111/apa.17473

First-year burden of disease for babies admitted to special care nurseries: Systematic review and meta-analysis

Acta Paediatr. 2025 Jan 10. doi: 10.1111/apa.17473. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Varnika Aggarwal^{1

2}, Hayley T Cron², Marcus Di Sipio^{2

3}, Sue Liu^{2

4}, Katie McBain^{2

5}, Kieran Mckenna^{2

3}, Jeanie L Y Cheong^{1

2

5

6}, Jing Wang^{2

5}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Newborn Health, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia.
² Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Parkville, Victoria, Australia.
³ Deakin University, Burwood, Victoria, Australia.
⁴ St. Vincent's Hospital Melbourne, Fitzroy, Victoria, Australia.
⁵ Department of Paediatrics, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia.
⁶ Newborn Research, Royal Women's Hospital, Parkville, Victoria, Australia.

PMID: 39794886
DOI: 10.1111/apa.17473

Abstract

Aim: This systematic review aimed to report on health outcomes of newborn babies admitted to special care nurseries up to age 1 year, and where possible, compare their outcomes with those of healthy term babies.

Methods: Systematic searches through Ovid MEDLINE, PubMed and Embase databases. We included studies reporting outcomes up to age 1 year for special care nursery babies and moderate-late preterm babies, restricting to studies published after 2000. We dual-screened studies and extracted study characteristics, prevalences and risk of health outcomes. We conducted meta-analysis to combine prevalence and risk estimates of each outcome.

Results: Among 22 585 eligible studies, 21 relevant studies were identified. Jaundice, hypothermia, hypoglycaemia and respiratory disease were prevalent in special care nursery babies, with pooled prevalence from 19% to 32%. Compared with healthy term babies, the special care nursery group had higher risk of all reported outcomes with pooled risk ratios from 1.93 to 14.85. There were limited studies reporting outcomes after discharge.

Conclusion: Babies admitted to special care nurseries face a higher burden of disease compared with non-admitted term babies, but there is currently limited literature describing their post-discharge outcomes.

Keywords: burden of disease; meta‐analysis; moderate‐late preterm; special care nursery; systematic review.

Publication types

Review