[magRN]

By the way that wasn't for 5 days....that was no A& B's wth stim. 5 per day...not counting self-limited.

[Mira]

I`ve got this baby,doing very well onKC,no A&B for a week then suddenly loads of A&B+desats needing vigorous stimulation,long line sepsis was the culprit.parents extremely anxious coz they thought baby will not go downhill again,I was wondering shall I or shall I not encourage KC?My own criteria for KC is they should be relaxed so as not to give negative stimulation for the baby.

[prmenrs]

Unfortunately, having a baby in a NICU is a roller-coaster ride. Babies can get septic @ any time, up to and including the day of discharge. Once the baby is again stable, and meets the criteria in your unit for Kangaroo Care, you can again offer it to the parents. Even if they don't want to do that, they can still hold the baby.

I'd expect them to be nervous, but you can remind them that it's not their fault, just like the fact that the baby is in the NICU in the 1st place isn't their fault. If they just happen to come in when YOU are holding the baby, they will feel more comfortable--don't forget-you are modeling behavior for them.

Maybe they can start out just holding, and progress to Kangaroo Care?

[iceNICUnurse]

We do kangaroo care if the baby is not intubated and no umbilical lines.
We dont have a written policy but the baby has to be fairly stable and not on too much oxygen.
We dont have any weight limits.

[KRVRN]

Man, we do Kangaroo with just about evey type of line/situation. We can K-care with UAC/UVC's, PALs, intubated, NCPAP, PIV, NC, frequent A/B's, temp instability, pressor drips, chest tubes, etc, etc. We need an order to K-care with arterial lines but that's never a problem. Hood O2 babies usually don't K-care, but we could if we wanted to for a brief time with BBO2. Hifi and Oscillators don't K-care. It's just about always nurses' discretion.

We've had fresh 23 weekers with mulitple lines K-care because we thought the baby was going to die within a few days. Took a few nurses to transfer the baby over but she tolerated it.

[nicudaynurse]

Kangarooing with a chest tube? Wow!! Our doc's usually want arterial lines out, but intubated babies were ok as long as they were somewhat stable.

[KRVRN]

I've seen babies breastfeed with chest tubes!