How do you warm your bottle - feeding?

Specialties NICU

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Specializes in neonatal.

In our unit If it is just a litlle of milk, we do it under the warm water but if dont we do it on the microwave, but i and my colleagues dont agree and im trying to change it .... We now have the possibility of having a machine that warms the bottles, till a programated temperature by the water steam. How do you warm your babies milk, and what do you think about this equipment?

Thank you

sofia

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Specializes in NICU.

Warm water here. We don't use the microwave for anything (except nurses feeds/fluids, LOL).

How long does the machine take to work? We've got a pretty big NICU (although a lot of the babies aren't on a whole lot of PO feeds) so we'd need a lot of them.

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Warm water. No microwaves at all.

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Specializes in NICU, Infection Control.

Agree w/above. No nuking babies' feedings--esp not breast milk!!

We use large cups--they should be labeled, one per customer, replaced and/or disinfected q24hrs.

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Specializes in neonatal.
How long does the machine take to work? We've got a pretty big NICU (although a lot of the babies aren't on a whole lot of PO feeds) so we'd need a lot of them.

The machine supposedly will be always working - 24h/7d! - because its not individual for each baby, you may warm about max. of 10 bottles at the same time. And the machine has a termostat that keep it always on the programed temp, eg: 37ºC.

In our unit we dont have pre determined routined hours of feeding the babies like in some units that i know - eg: every days at 9h, 12h, 15h, 18h, 21h, 00h, 3h and 6h its milk time! And the ones that have this routine and this machine, about 10`before this hours, they put all the bottles in to the machine for warm...

But we prefer more "a free regimen" about feeding the babies, trying to respect their individual "timings" - if it needs 2.5h or 3.5h for interval we do it, so our machine on these conditions will necessarily has to be on and on...

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Specializes in NICU.

The machine supposedly will be always working - 24h/7d! - because its not individual for each baby, you may warm about max. of 10 bottles at the same time. And the machine has a termostat that keep it always on the programed temp, eg: 37ºC.

In our unit we dont have pre determined routined hours of feeding the babies like in some units that i know - eg: every days at 9h, 12h, 15h, 18h, 21h, 00h, 3h and 6h its milk time! And the ones that have this routine and this machine, about 10`before this hours, they put all the bottles in to the machine for warm...

But we prefer more "a free regimen" about feeding the babies, trying to respect their individual "timings" - if it needs 2.5h or 3.5h for interval we do it, so our machine on these conditions will necessarily has to be on and on...

We do have scheduled feeding times for our wee ones, but the times are scattered throughout the day and vary from baby to baby, so if we used one, it would always be in use, too. I'm not so sure a cup of warm water is any harder to use than a machine, though ;).

You'll have to let us know how this pans out :).

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Are you warming formula? Why?

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Specializes in NICU.

What's wrong with just using warm water?

Our dieticians have told us that the formula/EBM doesn't need to be WARM, it just needs to be room temperature. So getting milk out of the fridge and putting it in some warm water does that ..... it just warms it up to room temperature.

I guess I'm not understanding why it needs to be warm? Do they order it that way? I've never seen that before.

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Specializes in NICU, Infection Control.

Some babies definitely prefer it warmed up and tolerate it better that way. Breast milk w/fortifier needs to be warmed to help the HMF mix in. And, imho, it's nicer that way. Normally, breast milk would be given @ "body" temp, anyway.

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We warm milk and formula in water. That machine seems like more work than necessary. And potential for an accident. Not too clear on how this steam machine works but someone in a hurry not notice that machine has overheated milk and burn baby or spill water and burn you. This one reason we're not allowed to use microwave to heat water or formula.

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Specializes in ER.

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5391307

This product half filled with water will warm a bottle in five minutes. Keep it on low and the commercially sealed bottles can stay in it forever and be ready whenever you want to use them.

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Specializes in neonatal.

We warm it because like

Some babies definitely prefer it warmed up and tolerate it better that way. Breast milk w/fortifier needs to be warmed to help the HMF mix in. And, imho, it's nicer that way. Normally, breast milk would be given @ "body" temp, anyway.

I give you more news when the machines starts working in our unit...

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