A few questions, pneumothorax and UAC's.

[Obnurseamber06]

I'm a new nurse. I graduated in May. Started working in the nursery about 2 months ago. Now my boss wants me to train Level 2. We had 3 small classes where we discussed some of the situations. I dont work again until this weekend so I wont have the chance to ask until I go back to work.

There are certain things that I wrote down and i'm now going over and dont quite understand. We were talking about pneumothoraces, which I'm now understanding are the same as a pneumothorax. Is is possible for a healthy baby to have this and not display respiratory distress?

Another thing I dont understand are UAC's and UVC's. I understand that UAC's are for drawing blood and UVC's can be used to give medication and fluids. Does that mean you cant flush fluids on a UAC?

Are umbilical catheter's like IV's in which they can be filled with a heparinized solution and turned off? Or is it a totally different thing.

I guess those are the only things (of the information we were given) that I dont understand at this point.

[BittyBabyGrower, MSN, RN]

Yes, a baby can have a small pneumothorax and be asymptomatic, but most will have some tachypnea and lower sats.

Invasive lines: UACs are put in if you need to monitor BP's, we don't routinely put them in just to draw bloods, unless it is a kid that is near exchange transfusion level for a high bili. It will need to have a 1:1 heparin solution running thru it all the time so it doesn't clot off. Occ. we have used our UAC's for meds if we have no other access. There are a few things you can't give thru it, such as vasopressors, Indocin. UVC is put in for IV access....most places, I believe, do not use them for long term unless they have no other choice. UVC's can be heplocked off, but the tend to clot off unless they are flushed frequently or have something running thru them.

We are also hesitant to feed small kids with umbilical lines, in some literature it states that it can increase the risk of necrotizing enterocolits.

Feel free to post other questions!

[Obnurseamber06]

Thanks. If I find any more questions i'll be sure to ask!

[EricJRN, MSN, RN]

And you're right that pneumothorax and pneumothoraces refer to the same thing. Pneumothoraces is just plural. You can have a left (or right) pneumothorax, but if it's bilateral, they're pneumothoraces.