Has anyone ever 'taped' a gravity feed?

[tinkerbell419]

I remember once seeing a nurse tape the gravity feed to the cotside to allow the milk to go down. As a student i didnt question it and thought that it must be ok to do that.

Unfortunately I made that mistake when running against the clock and was told off for attempting to do it and that it is unsafe.

I wanted to ask others about this and whether your ward says that you must hold the gravity feed?

Thanks

[NNICU-RN]

That is unsafe its like giving a bolus of feeding.Its too rapid for my comfort. It doesn't hurt to put the feeding over a syringe pump. IMO

[NNICU-RN]

That's intresting. I haven' t heard of that. I thought it would be the other way around

[tinkerbell419]

We use pumps if a child is on a continuous feed but if a child is being fed 3 hourly or something then sometimes we use the gravity feed method if they arent tolerating taking the milk by bottle.

It seems that a lot of people have different views.

[Jory, MSN, APRN, CNM]

We tape ours all time to the top of the isolette, allowing plenty of slack and only if it's less than 10 ml. Anything over that has to be on a pump.

[Mags4711, RN]

Yes, there is literature that speaks to the benefits of gravity bolus feeds versus pump feeds. I'll dig through my stuff when I get a moment and post some links.

My hospital used to use syringe pumps and we'd start feeding over an hours, then decrease to 45 mins, then 30 mins, etc. Now unless your baby is a surgical kiddo or has to be continuous for some reason (rare), or has demonstrated severe reflux that is made better by putting the feed on a pump, the baby is gravity fed. We tape up the syringes less than 10cc, for larger than that we use the soft arm posey velcro restraints and hang them from the IV pole arm on the Omnibed (using oral extension tubing).

[bmsrn]

We will tape our feedings like others have mentioned if it's under 10ml. We use 4fr, 6fr, and 8fr feeding tubes. We don't use the 8fr that much. I don't think it's unsafe like mentioned above. It goes pretty slow. I personally think it's a waste of time and supplied to put a feeding that's 10ml or less on a pump. We usually don't have tape residue all over our beds.

[Israel-Preemies]

We hang feeds of all quantities, but don't use anything bigger than a 30ml syringe. You can adjust the speed of the flow by the height that you hang the syringe...we only use a pump for those who need feed over an hour or half hour....

Not all of our stations have a place to hang, so we sometimes have to Mcgyver and i have taped a syringe many a time to the side of the "crib"

[Inesg]

Never heard of a feed being given by syringe pump really, that's interesting. On the first NICU i worked we use to hang it and i think it was due to the layout of the ward that allowed us to keep an eye on all babies at the same time. On the one i'm working now we just hold it while it's being given

[milkglass]

We use gravity feeds all the time, for all sizes of feeds. In fact, we just had a gestational diabetic 14 lb'er who was getting 100mL by gravity. Of course, the nurses were being lazy/not thinking and should have just ordered a kangaroo pump to run it on... but! my point is that's how much we use gravity feeds.

We tape them to the outside of the isolette. And yes, you can't control how fast it goes. I've seen it go in within 15 minutes. And yes, it does leave tape residue, and yes it does end up making a mess of old formula/breastmilk and meds on the side of the isolette that REALLY should be wiped down, but you know how it goes...

We do use pumps to run feeds for up to two hours if babies aren't tolerating gravity feeds. We also do NG "drips" where they run continuously for 7 hours at a slower rate, and are turned off for 1 hour where you check the residual then.

[walkingrock, ADN]

All our garage feelings are via syringe pump, unless the feeding is so small that it will run by gravity in a minute or less.

[walkingrock, ADN]

Gavage