Has anyone ever 'taped' a gravity feed?

KRVRN, BSN, RN · Mar 12, 2014

We do it frequently. If there's nowhere to tape it we'll put it on a feeding pump for 30 min or so. You have to make sure it's well taped to the baby's face and the hands are swaddled out of the way or covered with mittens.

katierobin23 · Mar 12, 2014

This is interesting to me, because my unit always puts it on a feeding pump...we confirm placement and check residual before we start it and make sure it's well taped. (The exception being less that 10mls, we can slow push that if the baby will tolerate it)

How long does it take to go in when it's held like that? We typically set the pumps for 30 minutes, but can go up to 2 hours for a reflux-y baby...we used to do continuous but don't anymore except in extreme cases of intolerance or reflux.

I can't imagine standing next to the bed just holding a feeding for however long, especially if I had a 4- baby assignment... Funny how different units can have such different policies and procedures :)

Bortaz, MSN, RN · Mar 12, 2014

We went through a period of time where most of our pumps were broken/lost (and a director that wouldn't buy more), so I have done it many times on feeds of less than 10 ML.

TiffyRN, BSN, PhD · Mar 12, 2014

I have rarely seen syringes taped to the "cotside" (not a common term in American English and I love it!). What we do instead is hang the syringes from "arms" typically inside isolettes. These are usually smaller volume feeds of less than 10mls and most of our kids are on bubble CPAP so they need the syringe left vented anyway. Even with the little ones, I rarely stand there and watch the feeding drip in though I will be aware to watch for any signs of not tolerating (bradys, desats) and intervene. We have a device (kind of wedges under the mattress) to hang bigger syringes in the open cribs but these are often larger volumes and while it wouldn't be wrong to hang these, most kids will not tolerate it and need a syringe pump. But you will probably not find me sitting there holding a 45ml feeding while it slowly drips in! I'll either hang it, tape it or find a syringe pump (most likely).

NicuGal, MSN, RN · Mar 12, 2014

Less than 10 we will hang by gravity, over goes on a pump.

NICURN29 · Mar 12, 2014

We usually use rubber bands to hang our feeds from either the light on the Giraffe or from an IV pole. I have taped a syringe to the wall or a bed when I didn't have rubber bands or when a baby was being held in a spot where the tubing didn't reach.

tinkerbell419 · Mar 16, 2014

Does your unit recommend that you hold the feed as your controlling the flow. If you tape the tube to the side of something like the isolette or side of crib then it isnt being controlled.

Was just looking for some more information on this.

NicuGal, MSN, RN · Mar 16, 2014

We don't stand there and hold it, we mostly use 5 fr tubes so the feeds don't go quickly anyways, and we tape them low to control the flow.

katierobin23 · Mar 16, 2014

I've never done feedings this way so I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around it.

Is there a benefit to that over using a syringe pump? The only thing I can think of is not wasting the 2mls for tubing if it's a breast milk feed.

I'm just picturing a mess of tape residual on isolates and lots of spillage lol

maxx12 · Mar 17, 2014

The last unit I worked on had recently gone away from putting feeds on a pump due to increased NEC risk and did NG feeds gravity gavage. Anyone else heard of that?

NicuGal, MSN, RN · Mar 17, 2014

I haven't heard of that reason for gavage/ gravity feeds. Did they have any literature?

We don't have a problem with tape marks, we just got new isolette a and use the ETT holder to tape them to.