Air Pockets in IV

[Amlynn]

Hello!

I just started nursing school this past semester, so I'm still a baby at many, many things. My question comes from a personal experience I had yesterday. I am due to have a baby any day now, and I just recently spent the last two days in hospital being monitored for Preeclampsia (yuck!). Everything turned out fine so now I'm back at home playing the waiting game. During my stay, I had an IV for fluids, and during my second bag change my nurse proceeded to crank up the speed and walk out of my room. I glanced over at my IV tubing to see multiple, huge pockets of air making its way down the line. They were about the length of 1-2 ml of a syringe. Not sure exactly about actual ml. I've never seen air pockets so big in an IV before. They were complete pockets of empty space, not like the bubbles I've seen many times before. I was completely alone in the room, so I pretty much just shut my eyes and waited to see what would happen. As they steadily ran down in line into my IV, I was happy to report that nothing seemed to happen. I did get extremely congested, and lost most of my hearing due to pressure a few minutes later, but being pregnant I tend to have these episodes quite frequently anyways. I'm not at all confident that the two were related in any way. I never again saw the same nurse, and when I questioned the next nurse who came in she told me bubbles are normal. I understand, but these weren't bubbles so much as large air pockets. I suppose my question here is, is it really normal? How much air is too much air? There was never any flushing of my IV or fluids at any point during my stay.

Thank you so much for your response!

[klone, MSN, RN]

Actual human studies have found that in an adult, it would take the entire line of an IV line (which is around 20cc, I believe) to actually harm someone. Once it goes into your vein, your blood quickly absorbs the air and breaks it down (sorry, can't think of all the right fancy words ATM, haven't had coffee yet and I have anomia).

That said, it was kind of irresponsible of your nurse. Little bubbles are hard to avoid, but big lines of air can and should be removed.

[Christy1019, ASN, RN]

I second what the last poster said. Otherwise pts would be dying left and right lol

[All4NursingRN]

It takes as little as 30 ml of air to cause an air embolus. Like klone stated above you'd need a whole tubing of air to cause harm if that little at all. Air pockets and air bubbles just look messy to me so I try to prime as much as I can without losing too much fluid.

[Amlynn]

Thank you all so very, very much. I'm still getting my sea legs and your responses were excellent and very helpful! This is my first post here on the boards and I'm happily looking forwards to coming here to search for info and to ask questions during my schooling.

Great site!

[Asystole RN]

The general rule is that an otherwise healthy adult can absorb 20ml of air per minute from the blood. Things like body size, cardiac issues, pulmonary and the like can diminish the ability to absorb air.

That being said, it is poor practice to allow more than small bubbles to be infused.