Meaning & use
neonatal intensive care unit
Last updated
Meaning
nouncountablemedical
A hospital department with special equipment and staff for looking after newborn babies who are very small, born too early or seriously ill.
Grammar: Countable; usually shortened to NICU, with the or a before it: the neonatal intensive care unit.
Patterns
- in the neonatal intensive care unit
- admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit
The baby was born six weeks early and spent two weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit.
Parents can sit beside the incubator in the neonatal intensive care unit.
Our regional hospital has just opened a bigger neonatal intensive care unit.
Word forms
| plural | neonatal intensive care units |
|---|
Common combinations
- admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit
- The twins were admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit straight after birth.
- nurse in the neonatal intensive care unit
- She works as a nurse in the neonatal intensive care unit.
- spend weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit
- Premature babies may spend weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit.
- transferred to a neonatal intensive care unit
- The newborn was transferred to a neonatal intensive care unit in the city.
- neonatal intensive care unit staff
- Neonatal intensive care unit staff taught the parents how to feed the baby.
Synonyms and how they differ
- NICU
- NICU is the standard abbreviation and what staff and parents usually say aloud.
- special care baby unit
- A special care baby unit is a British term for a ward that often gives a lower level of care than a full intensive care unit.
- newborn intensive care
- Newborn intensive care is a simpler, less technical way to say the same thing in plain speech.
Word family
Commonly confused: neonatal intensive care unit or prenatal? neonatal intensive care unit or postnatal?
neonatal intensive care unit vs prenatal
Prenatal means before birth, while neonatal means in the first weeks after birth.
neonatal intensive care unit vs postnatal
Postnatal means after birth in general, often relating to the mother; neonatal refers specifically to the baby in its first four weeks.
Practice
Which patient would most likely be treated in a neonatal intensive care unit?
Choose one answer.
Neonatal units care for newborns with serious needs. The other patients are not newborns, and heart patients would go to an adult cardiac unit.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “neonatal intensive care unit”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.