Vital signs in NICU

Specialties NICU

Published

Hi. Hoping that somone can help me.

Im a nursing student about to start a placement in the NICU.

Im trying to find out what the 'norms' are for vital signs in the NICU. I realise that they wont be as straight forward as adult or even other paediatric ones.

I have tried looking in my text book and on the internet but cant find anything.

Help!

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we keep our monitors set at the following:

hr 100-200 (120-160 is our norm)

rr 10-100 (30-60 is our norm) can be tachypneic, >60 and still bo ok, just depends on sats and work of breathing, and ability to nipple feed.

o2 sat 80-100 for 30 wks (the norm will vary greatly depending on the diagnosis.

bp the mean arterial pressue should be no less than the gestational age. 25 weeker map should be no less than 25.... some like it be at least 30. bp will vary depending on age, parameters are set by md on admit, and adjusted as the kids gets older.

vs will vary, sometimes greatly, depending on conditio gest. age, etc.

also different facilities will have different parameters, depending on attending physician.

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Thankyou :)

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for our unit our normal value:

Temp 36.8-37.2)

RR: (30-60)

HR120-160)

BP we tried to keep mean is the gestational age +10.

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Specializes in NICU- now learning OR!.

Google is usually a really good source of information (just pay attention to the site that is giving the information)

http://www.aafp.org/afp/980501ap/trachten.html

For our hospital:

HR 100-200 or >35 wks 80-200

RR 20-100 (>60 considered tachypnea and will not nipple feed)

Temp 36.3-37.5

SpO2 (on RA) 85-100 on O2 typically 83-97 but the policy is 5 below and 2 above the ordered sat parameters (some babies alarms will be set much lower than others for various reasons...) Any baby on O2 should not sat 99-100% for any real length of time (refer to your textbooks for information on this)

HTH

Jenny

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