[PremieOne]

My NICU is having a major problem with car seats. We are sending premies home that are less than 4 pounds (small for gestational age). The one car seat that did accommodate these tiny infants had a recall and we no longer use them. The car beds on the market say 5 pounds or greater and so far we have not been able to find a company that has a safe car bed or car seat that has one for premies less than 4 pounds. Does anyone know of a car seat - car bed company that accommodates these tiny infants.? Do any other NICUs have a similar problem?
The insurance companies are refusing to continue hospital coverage of these infants and the hospital does not want to pay for another week or two until the infant reaches 4 or 5 pounds.
Diane Glasser MSN, RNC

[ilstu99]

We use a company called Angel Guard. They make a car bed for babies under 5lbs. I found an ad for them here:

http://www.babyminestore.com/index.a...D&ProdID=11144

[RainDreamer]

All of our babies that go home under 5 lbs go home in a car bed. Not sure what the company is though, I would have to check when I go back to work. Our hospital provides the car bed for the baby at discharge.

[TiffyRN]

The Chicco car seat is supposed to be from 4-30 pounds. I think this is the one you talked about being recalled because I had parents this last week that said they were so happy they were able to get it, that it had just been "unrecalled". It was great. The kid was about 2000 grams and I actually had to raise the shoulder straps one level because the kid was too "big" for the lowest shoulder setting.

I guess our case managers just choose not to deal with the issue of printed weight recommendations. We can't tell a parent their car seat is not acceptable unless it's been recalled. Of course our <35 week at birth have to pass a car seat challenge (never mind APA recommends <37 weeks. . .) but otherwise we let them go in whatever car seat the parent presents to us as long as the baby passes the car seat test.

That doesn't really help with the <4 pound group though (since you're being good and sticking with the published weight recommendations). I'm sure that the Chicco car seat I saw last week would have done just fine for a close to 4 pounder since I had to raise the straps for a child that was just over 4 pounds.

We do use that car bed linked on an earlier post with the kids that fail car seat tests repeatedly or if they must be positioned prone (some of the spina bifida kids). It's the only car bed I've ever seen.