Concurrent admission of a mother and her newborn to separate intensive care units (herein referred to as co-ICU admission), possibly in different centres, can magnify family discord and stress. We examined the prevalence and predictors of mother-infant separation and mortality associated with co-ICU admissions.
We completed a population-based study of all 1 023 978 singleton live births in Ontario between Apr. 1, 2002, and Mar. 31, 2010. We included data for maternal-infant pairs that had co-ICU admission (n = 1216), maternal ICU admission only (n = 897), neonatal ICU (NICU) admission only (n = 123 236) or no ICU admission (n = 898 629). The primary outcome measure was mother-infant separation because of interfacility transfer.
The prevalence of co-ICU admissions was 1.2 per 1000 live births and was higher than maternal ICU admissions (0.9 per 1000). Maternal-newborn separation due to interfacility transfer was 30.8 (95% confidence interval [CI] 26.9-35.3) times more common in the co-ICU group than in the no-ICU group and exceeded the prevalence in the maternal ICU group and NICU group. Short-term infant mortality (