Very low birth weight infants, those weighing less than 3.25 pounds, account for half of infant deaths in the United States each year, yet a new study released in today’s issue of JAMA-Pediatrics documents that these critically ill infants do not receive optimal nursing care, which can lead to hospital-acquired infections that double their death rate and may result in long-term developmental issues affecting the quality of their lives as adults.

These vulnerable infants are the highest risk pediatric patients in hospitals and account for half of all infant deaths in the country each year. These hospital-acquired infections afflicted 13.9 percent of these frail infants in 2009, the last year reported in the study.

The lead authors, based at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey- School of Public Health and the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, studied very low birth weight infants cared for in 67 Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICU).   “One-third of NICU infants were understaffed, according to current guidelines. Understaffing varies further across acuity levels with the greatest fraction of understaffed infants (92 percent) requiring the most complex critical care, translating into a needed 25% increase in the numbers of nurses,” wrote co-principal investigators Jeannette A. Rogowski, PhD, the University Professor in Health Economics at the UMDNJ-School of Public Health and Eileen T. Lake, PHD, RN, FAAN, associate director of the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing.