Do you sign out breast milk?

[dawngloves]

And/or do you have to have another nurse co sign? Is this a JCHAO standard?

[Gompers, BSN, RN]

Dieticians to mix your formulas and fortified breast milk?! *sigh* Sounds like a dream!

I know, we're so spoiled! I hope they never lay off the NICU dietary department!!! We have 2 actual dieticians and 2 techs who alternate working 9-5, 7 days a week. The dieticians work with the docs and fill out weekly nutrition worksheets for each baby, detailing the caloric and protein needs of each baby, and making recommendations for what formula and amount to use on each kiddo. They also help the docs decide who needs what kind of protein/fat/calorie mixture in the TPN.

They make the formulas up under a hood in their dietary room each day, and the new formula is ready in the fridge at 4pm and expires at 4pm the next day. They draw up enough syringes of formula for each baby for the next 24 hours, and if the baby is PO ad lib or one of our chronics that gets tons of food, they put it in a big jug or bucket instead. They also make up extra buckets of commonly used formulas (like Neosure 24 and 27, 1/2 strength Pregestimil, etc.) in case of new feeding orders overnight. If the baby is getting plain breastmilk or one of the commercially bottled formulas, then the nurse just does that herself at the bedside, of course.

[dawngloves, BSN, RN]

Gompers, I am pea green!!!!!

[likeminz]

We have a very strict policy around the signing and storage of EBM. All EBM has to be double signed. When you add calories to EBM or formula they have to be double signed. EBM can only be kept for 5 days in the fridge (not on the door), however we freeze it, defrosted EBM is only good for 24 hrs. We have quite an extensive policy detailing care of EBM.

cheers

[kitty29]

And/or do you have to have another nurse co sign? Is this a JCHAO standard?

We double check milk with another nurse as you are preparing it, and you label the milk, and chart that you have done so by both nurses.

[TTRN]

In our unit we have 2 seperate freezers, one is for Donor milk and the other is for mom's milk. The donor bottles all have labels that list the caloric value and batch number. The Donor milk batch # is placed next to the baby's hospital label and logged in. This is the only milk that is logged in. All milk is verbally double checked with another RN.