An exploration of environmental risks factors for preterm infants in the neonatal intensive care unit.

Abstract

Occupational therapists consider occupation to be tasks and activities a person partakes in e.g. feeding, growing, interacting with parents and sleeping. Occupational therapy works to enable people to engage with their chosen occupations, in doing this they look at the environment that a person is in and how this influences their functioning. This literature review will look at the impact of the environmental factors of light and noise and how these affect preterm infants. The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) is a unit for babies that are born prematurely (before 37 weeks) who are often medically unwell with a wide range of complications. In Scotland between 2014/2015, 2510 premature infants were born and required admission to the neonatal intensive care unit.