cord gases

I do blood gas testing in the STAT chem lab and was wondering how cord gas samples are obtained. We get an arterial and a venous syringe , and the results are called immediately to the delivery room, yet often the baby is not born for several hours. HOW in the world are these samples drawn if the baby isnt born yet? I gotta know....

[SmilingBluEyes]

cords gases? sure you are NOT referring to fetal SCALP sampling???? That is my guess anyhow.....

Our dr's *used* to do this but have backed off. If a strip looks that bad, they purport (and I agree), it's time for more aggressive intervention---e.g. csection. If they are gonna go so far as to lance a fetus' scalp (and it can be a tough procedure at times, and results easily skewed, as well as risk for infection, etc...), they may as well be prepared to get the baby out NOW anyway.

Once baby is born, THEN cord gases are obtained to see just how acidotic the baby was/is and what we may expect in the nursery from that kid as he/she transitions.

[Liann]

These samples are labelled "cord gases". We get an arterial and a venous. I thought at first that they might be scalp, but a scalp sample would consist of mixed arterial and venous blood.

We have been led to believe that the team is monitoring whether to do a section if the baby is distressed, but I suspect these gases are being drawn AFTER birth.

[SmilingBluEyes]

yes they must be.

[dawngloves, BSN, RN]

Originally posted by Liann

yet often the baby is not born for several hours.

Who told you that? And when you find out how they do it, let me know! :chuckle

[imenid37]

we do a lot of fetal o2 sat monitoring before birth. anyone else do this? it worries me still when we have lots of variables, because as the baby descends if you have some kind of cord compression or entrapment, it doesn't seem to me that the good fsp02 values would do a lot to assure a good outcome. sorry to stray from the original question. anyone have any thoughts or experience on this one?

[SmilingBluEyes]

like i said earlier, if a strip looks that bad, she is going to the back. our dr's really don't mess w/fetal o2 monitoring for just the reason you mentioned above.