Death rates in your NICU?

[babyNP., APRN]

I'm an orientee right now (on week 8 of 20) and I recently got invited to a memorial service for all the infants who have died in the last year. I counted them and it was 60. That number just blew my mind. That's an average of 5 babies a month. I could potentially (although highly unlikely, granted) have a patient that dies on me each week.

What are the death rates in your NICU? How do you cope with it? I've helped other nurses with post-mortem care, but never my own patient yet (I'm just learning about vents right now)

[NICU_babyRN, BSN, RN]

How big is your NICU?

I would say we probably average 3-5 deaths/month, maybe a little less.

We have 60 beds...

[babyNP., APRN]

The census varies a lot, but we have anywhere from 30-55 patients at a time. I wonder if because we have so many high acuity cases from referral hospitals could be a reason.

[lvnurs9]

Wow that is a lot of deaths. I came from a 80 bed unit and we had pretty high acuity, although not all the time. Mostly micros. I would say we would lose on average 1 a month. Sometimes it would be 3 in one week, but then none for a while. Just depends. I guess if you work in a very high acuity unit, those numbers can be skewed. Where I am now is only 25 beds. I have been here 6 weeks and they have had 2 deaths so far...

[texas2007, BSN, RN]

We average 8-12 deaths a month...census is usually 80's, been hopping lately though.

[NicuGal, MSN, RN]

Depends on the acuity and the gestational ages of the kids.

[dawngloves, BSN, RN]

It's hard to say because do you count kids that didn't make it out of the delivery or kids that lived less than 24 hours? How about kids that transferred out for surgery and expired?

[babyNP., APRN]

^^ yeah, I agree. That's a good point.

[Finallyat40]

We usually have 12-14 a month, but then we'll go a couple of weeks and have none....we are a county delivery hospital with upwards of 16,000 deliveries a year and an average census of about 75. These numbers only include babies born over 23 weeks with a heart rate. The others are counted in L&D.

Jamie