Background:

Loud sound has a negative impact on the health of the neonate in the short and long term. Its reduction is a problem in the newborn intensive care unit (NICU).

Objective:

To determine the decibel levels inside and outside the incubator before and after speaking in the NICU of a tertiary care hospital.

Material and methods:

An experimental, analytical, prospective, cross-sectional study was carried out, accepted by the ethics committee. Decibels were measured before and after speaking inside and outside the incubator, and decibel levels were compared between shifts.

Results:

When comparing the average decibels inside the incubator before speaking, we found an average of 60 ± 3.8 and after speaking 65 ± 4 being statistically significant (< 0.001). The total average of decibels outside the incubator before speaking was 64.1 ± 3.7 and after speaking 69.1 ± 3.9 being statistically significant (< 0.001).

Conclusions:

After talking and comparing the decibels inside vs. outside, we found that outside the incubator is 4 decibels higher than inside (p < 0.001). When comparing the shifts, the evening shift was the noisiest and the night shift the least.