E.Coli in sputum aspirate cx

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hey guys!

I'm fairly a new NICU nurse. Loving it so far, even through the tough times...anyways, I was wondering if someone can answer how in the world can a baby get E.coli in his/her sputum cx??? I have had these 2 kids for the past 4 days and I have done everything I can to maintain a clean environment...both kid's CRP went down, compared to the day before...so I'm utterly confused!!! help!

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Specializes in Neonatal ICU (Cardiothoracic).

Changing a diaper, then suctioning the kid without washing your hands can do it....

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Changing a diaper, then suctioning the kid without washing your hands can do it....

:barf01:

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Specializes in NICU, adult med-tele.

Gross. We have traced e-coli back to breastmilk a time or two...

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Specializes in NICU.

I've seen it a few times and EWWW......

hand washing!!!!!!! is a must!

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We had a little 24 weeker who was covered in e. coli sepsis. They say he got it from mom... his birth culture was positive. His poor skin fell off... he looked like a 500 gram burn patient. It was aweful. He actually went home.

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Specializes in NICU.
We had a little 24 weeker who was covered in e. coli sepsis. They say he got it from mom... his birth culture was positive. His poor skin fell off... he looked like a 500 gram burn patient. It was aweful. He actually went home.

Yeesh....

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Specializes in NICU.

How about this...You are changing their diaper and they reach their hand down there. You wipe their hand, but how clean do you really get it? Then they put thier hand up to their mouth. Yuck!:barf01:We had a baby with a PICC line who became sick. The tip of the PICC was cultured and came back positive for E. Coli.

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, PACU.

E. Coli is one of those bugs that can migrate out of the bowel and go anywhere. We have been finding that our bad gut kids that have mulitple contrast enemas, swallows, etc end up with E.Coli sepsis, etc. Why? Because if you have compromised bowel without a good wall integrity the bacteria can actually be forced thru it. Same for a kid with a bad gut with out studies...E. Coli loves to travel. It can end up just about anywhere. One of the CCF GI docs told us that. I thought it was pretty interesting.

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Specializes in NICU.

We have a sad kiddo right now with E.Coli and Klebsiella sepsis. He's also got b/l inguinal hernias that were, for a while, difficult to reduce, and so they got shoved on a lot. There's a theory floating around that mashing on them all the time may have translocated some gut flora.

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