Amicillin via UAC?

[I'mANurse!]

A few weeks ago I was caring for a baby that had a UAC (no UVC), and a PIV in place. Babe was on amp & gent. During my shift, the PIV went bad, so I placed a new one. Awhile later, the charge nurse was roaming the unit to get updates on patients. I mentioned that I had just replaced the pts PIV. She asked me why this baby needs a PIV. I told her because he was receiving ampicillin and gentamicin and he was due for the amp. She then says, "Why didn't you just give the amp through the UAC?" I told her that I didn't know I could ( I thought we only used our UACs for blood gases & BPs). She just says "yeah you can" and walks off without any other explanation, leaving me feeling like an idiot/incompetent. I mentioned this to one of my more experienced co-workers (i've only been there 1 yr), and she told me that was an "old-school" thing. So, I was wondering, do you all give ampicillin in UAC's? Did I poke this baby and insert and IV for no reason? Do you give any meds via UACs? But I will say that my PIV came in very handy later in the shift when the pt crumped and went into pulmonary HTN....

[2curlygirls]

In a pinch, yes. Ideally, no. I have to say, I've done it on quite a few occasions. My old unit (where I was trained) didn't seem to have much issue with doing it. But we also had really sick kids who tended to have all their other access ports occupied with drips and transfusions.