frequency of linen changes in the NICU

[iyqyqr]

With all the concerns about infection and VAP I've been surprised to find that only one of the NICU's I've worked in as a traveler had a policy on how often the warmer, isolette, and open crib linens were changed. They changed bedding to the nest every day and did a full bed change to the mattress every other day, no matter how ill the infant was. I'm considering setting up a research study and culturing beds to see at what point the germ levels increase. Has any hospital scientifically done this research? What is your unit's policy on linen changes and even baths? Do you document this on the chart or on the bed with a sticky? Please let me know and I promise to post my data after I do my study.

:balloons:

[Sweeper933]

I hate when people do that!! One time I even had a nurse tell me in report that the baby threw up. I go in to do my round and she hadn't even changed the linen!! That irks me to no end because 1.) that's disgusting, how would you like laying in dried throw up? and 2.) would you like your baby to be laying in that?

Seriously.

[elizabells, BSN, RN]

We do baths on nights, and I once had the day nurse tell me "Mom was complaining that the baby is sort of stinky, so if you could get around to giving him a bath, that would be great."

Whaaaa? You're going to let the baby lay there and smell when the mom is complaining about it, AND miss an opportunity to do some good patient teaching/help them bond? I very nearly said (since running TPN lines is a day shift job) "Okay, so next time they make a kid NPO at midnight I'll just hang on to the TPN till you get here?" But I'm a nice person.

(And no, I had not been the nurse the night before, when he may or may not have gotten a bath)

[mybabies]

That is something that bothers me as well. When I was working night shift at a hospital in Atlanta I had a Mom that was inquiring about the baby's bath. It had already been done for the night but I told her that whenever she wanted to give a bath, even if it was during day shift to call ahead and make sure the nurse is aware so we don't go ahead and do it. When I was giving report I told the day shift nurse about my conversation with Mom and that Mom was very excited to have a chance to give the bath. When I came back on shift that night and received report from the same day shift nurse she had the nerve to tell me to "never tell a parent that again." She told me that was a way to get day shift mad at me. Her "logical" reasoning was that she could do a bath in 5 minutes and a parent takes longer. I could not believe a nurse was saying this to me. I quickly informed her that I would keep telling parents they could give the bathes and I did not care if she liked it or not. I told her the baby belonged to the parents and they had every right to bathe him and have that special bonding time.

Back to the topic, sorry: I have worked in 3 NICU's and they all have had different guidelines for changing linen. One place we changed them every night as well as gave the baby a bath every night. And then the other two we pretty much just changed them on an as needed basis.

[preemieRNkate, RN]

We do baths on nights, and I once had the day nurse tell me "Mom was complaining that the baby is sort of stinky, so if you could get around to giving him a bath, that would be great."

Whaaaa? You're going to let the baby lay there and smell when the mom is complaining about it, AND miss an opportunity to do some good patient teaching/help them bond? I very nearly said (since running TPN lines is a day shift job) "Okay, so next time they make a kid NPO at midnight I'll just hang on to the TPN till you get here?" But I'm a nice person.

(And no, I had not been the nurse the night before, when he may or may not have gotten a bath)

We generally do baths at night too. Unless of course, the kid stinks or the parents want to learn. We do have nurses tell parents to ask the nurse at night to do it with them cause "they're not as busy at night." And we have nurses document in the bath section of the flowsheet "Nights, T.Y." :icon_roll

[mybabies]

Even though we do linen changes on an as needed basis, it has been 356 days since out last VAP!!!!!

[jetskibabe68]

I work night shift and I usually do 3 nights in a row. I will typically change my linens out completely on my babies once a night. The day shift doesn't seem to care if there is spit up or something else on the linens. I do. If my baby is unstable, then obviously I do not compromise their stability for the sake of clean linens. We have a policy that our babies our bathed every 3 days if they are stable and our isolettes, (Caleo's) are changed every 10 days as beds are available. I work in the baby factory of the country, so our census is typically 100+ most of the time and beds are not always available to swap out. It is the descretion of the nurse as to how much to do with the linens based on the stability of the infant. But to me it is just laziness to leave an infant laying in spit up for 8 hours that is stable when you can change the linens very easily next time you go in the bed. PS - if when you go into your infants bed and the pulse ox is being held on with tape or smells yeasty, change it. One of my pet peaves. sorry for venting! :innerconf

[preemieRNkate, RN]

PS - if when you go into your infants bed and the pulse ox is being held on with tape or smells yeasty, change it. One of my pet peaves. sorry for venting! :innerconf

Oh, seriously. It's like my coworkers are afraid it's going to come out of their next paycheck if they put a new one on!

[elizabells, BSN, RN]

Oh, seriously. It's like my coworkers are afraid it's going to come out of their next paycheck if they put a new one on!

And paper tape over the ECG leads when they don't stick anymore? GAAAAH! I admit to occasionally putting pink tape around a sat probe on the really sweaty PPHN kids, but I still change it on every shift.