Environmental sound spectral analysis suffered by neonatal patients. Case study: Nicu of Hospital Universitario Puerta del Mar (Cádiz).

Abstract

The objective of this work focuses on the frequency analysis of the noise suffered by neonatal patients inside the incubators located in Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICU). As a rule, noise has been evaluated in relation to the equivalent continuous level per hour (LAeq,1h). Different international organizations, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, establish a recommended limit for this index of 45 dBA. However, according to the existing literature, the audible range of the neonate is between 400 Hz and 4 kHz, coinciding with the range of human speech intelligibility frequencies. For this, we have carried out a series of acoustic measurements that allow us to evaluate the noise in the NICU of the Hospital Universitario Puerta del Mar in Cádiz, which allows us to show that the indicator used LAeq,1h must be complemented with a study and frequency analysis to determine acoustic quality and protect to neonates.