But they often remain in the NICU for months, where they can develop infections from intravenous lines delivering fluids and nutrition, or lung disease associated with ventilators getting air into their lungs.

WSJ: How Hospitals Save More Lives and Reduce Infections in Premature Babies

Paige Arthur, a 41-year-old Boerum Hill mother, said that when she gave birth in January and her son was in the NICU, the nurses stuffed him with formula and one even criticized her for breast feeding.

WSJ: One Sure Formula for Controversy

Other reports noted that personnel were carrying babies from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and children from the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) down 9 flights of stairs to evacuate them from the building.

FORBES: UPDATED: NYU Hospital Without Power, Evacuation Underway, Bellvue Hospital With Only 2 Hours of Power Left

Studies suggest that reducing the rate of these deliveries to a reasonable number could eliminate as many as one-half million NICU days, which could lower health costs for the U.S. But this would force hospitals to take a big financial hit.

FORBES: The Five Biggest Problems In Health Care Today

The researchers in the Science Translational Medicine paper, working directly with Illumina, first developed a diagnostic test that captured 600 genes that were likely to be the reason the babies wound up in the NICU. That panel is being sold as a kit by Illumina and will likely be used by some commercial laboratories that have government certifications to do diagnostic testing.

FORBES: DNA Sequencing: Is Science Fiction Becoming Medical Fact?