FOOTPRINTS

We don't do footprints as routine, and especially not on the timy premmies, who do not need the handling and certainly don't need ink put on their thin, permeable skin - who knows what chemicals are in the ink! We do prints for stable babies at the parent's request, and when a baby has died we do hand and footprints for the memory box. The doctors wouldn't expect us to do it, and the nurses wouldn't do it anyway!

We do footprints at admission / as soon as the baby is stable enough / has no IVs on their foot. As far as getting the ink off - we have found that the hospital lotion works extremely well! Just put a big glob of the lotion on a diaper cloth and the ink comes right off of their feet!

Can I tag on this question? Do you do footprints as hospital record?

We do them on everyone upon delivery (so the NICU nurses don't actually do them). But where I am now uses ink. Last place had a piece of plastic that you pressed the foot on and it would transfer the ink from there.

We aren't required and we don't do it for hospital record.

Usually in the first couple of days (depending on how stable the kid is) we do a set of footprints to put on the name signs we make for the babies. And after that we do them at the parents' request or whenever, it's really up to the nurse.

About a year ago, we started doing footprints on all babies, regardless of size or how sick they are. If they are admitted, they get footprints done (sometimes just one, if there is an IV on one foot). We have inky footprinters, which are messy, but using aquaphor or A&D takes it right off.

Dawn

We stopped doing footprints as part of the hospital record a year or 2 ago. We still do them sometimes for parents, or when a baby dies for the memory box.

(PreemieRNkate) We stopped doing footprints as part of the hospital record a year or 2 ago. We still do them sometimes for parents, or when a baby dies for the memory box.

Interesting, because we just started doing them for the hospital record about a year or so ago. Now the charge nurse comes through doing her quality assurance checks every week to look for those footprints in the chart.

Dawn

our kids come up from L&D pre-printed

We do footprints of the infant and thumbprint of mom at delivery on all infants for the Hollister record. We use the inkless wipes. We also do footprints on a "keepsake" birth certificate when the infant is stable, that is sent to medical records to have all the information typed in. Med. records then mails it to the parents.

In our hospital, footprints go in and out of vogue based on the frequency of abduction scares. If your institution is insistent on doing them, insist on inkless footprinters for any babies less than 34 weeks.