Butterflys as Infusion Devices?

[jadelpn]

This is new to me, but I just wanted to put the question out there. There seems to be a few threads regarding using a butterfly needle (that one would use for a blood draw) as a device to infuse in the short term.

Is this common practice? What is the advantage of this?

[llg, PhD, RN]

Back in the "olden days," when I was a new grad in the NICU ...they didn't make IV catheters small enough for premature babies. But they did have butterflies that were small enough -- and that's what we used for most of our peripheral IV's. We'd keep them in hand veins and scalp veins for days. If that wasn't good enough, we'd have to get a physician to do a "cut down" to access a deeper vein big enough for a pediatric catheter to get into.

[green34]

It was in our medic book about using them on infants but I don't think I've ever seen them in the field. I think it was mentioned in the nursing book but I don't remember. It would be easier to just use a 22 or 24.