Microphones in and around an incubator at the Medical University Vienna. The listening experience of a preterm infant or neonate drastically differs from that of an adult as also the intrauterine hearing experience differs from an extra-uterine hearing exposure in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) setting. Several studies have documented that the sound level within a NICU far exceeds the recommended threshold and that this could be the cause of hearing loss or damage in preterm infants. The aim of this study was not only to precisely declare sound dynamics within an incubator but also to give clinicians and caregivers an idea about what can be heard “inside the box”.
Audio recordings within an incubator were conducted at the Pediatric Simulation Center of the Medical University Vienna. They contained recorded music, speech and synthesized sounds. To understand sound dynamics around and within the incubator the following stimuli were used: broadband noise with decreasing sound level in ten steps of 6 dB, sine waves´, logarithmic sweep (Chirp) over the frequency band 20 Hz to 21 kHz, singing male voice, singing and whispering female voice.
<a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:DrTrumpet" title="User:DrTrumpet">DrTrumpet</a>
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<span class="int-own-work" lang="en">Own work</span>