RSV... The supersized version?!!!

Specialties Emergency

Published

Specializes in ED, Pedi Vasc access, Paramedic serving 6 towns.

Hi all,

I am an ER nurse in a fairly busy ER, but I have never seen what I have seen in the last couple of weeks...

Five babies, yes five all under one month have come to our er in repiratory failure secondary to RSV! All but one of them required intubation, all of them required transfer to a PICU. The one thing they had is common was the RSV. I have been in emergency medicine for quite a while and I, nor the nurses that have been ER nurses since nursing existed , have ever seen that many babies come in to the ER that sick from RSV.

Anyone else seeing neonates and babies a little older comming in sicker than normal from RSV???

Sweetooth

The consensus at my work is that RSV this year isn't as snotty as usual, but there's a lot more crud in the kids' lungs. Suctioning isn't helping like it usually does because it's all down low.

Specializes in ED, Pedi Vasc access, Paramedic serving 6 towns.

yeah that is certainly true now that you mention it.... thank you for the reply.

Thanks for posting about it! It's interesting to hear that it's not just my hospital that's noticing RSV is acting different this year!

Specializes in NICU, PICU, PCVICU and peds oncology.

Our PICU has had at least a dozen intubated infants with RSV since mid-December, some as young as 17 days. We also have had about the same number with RSV who didn't require intubation but were in severe respiratory distress treated by high-flow O2.

Specializes in ER, education, mgmt.

Sweettooth- funny you should mention this. We were discussing yesterday how we have not seen really much RSV at all, but this week we saw 2 very sick babies that had to be shipped out that were negative for RSV. We have had very little RSV or flu this year. Maybe the economy??:clown:

Specializes in ED.

Our ER has seen far fewer cases than normal of RSV this year....BUT...the ones we have seen were very bad cases with intubation common. Not sure what is going on with the bugs, but this year when they strike, they strike HARD and FAST.

Specializes in ED, Pedi Vasc access, Paramedic serving 6 towns.

hmm.. strange... ok I just wanted to see if other people were seeing the same thing.

JanFrn if you work in Boston its probably all the babies we have had in the last couple of weeks :)

Sweetooth

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