Hanging a Mag Bolus?

[LDR-RN]

when you are hanging a bag of mag sulfate, when giving the bolus, do you have pre mixed bags of 4 grams, 6 granms, etc.? or do you have a larger bag that contains 20g or 30g and then set the pump to deliver the correct bolus amount? or do you mix your own bags? i think the safest way would be to have smaller dosage bags premixed in pharmacy. how do your l&d units do this? thanks!

[JenRN99]

Several years ago I was a travel nurse and seemed to see it both ways. Most consistently I saw 1000ml sterile water with 40g mag. I think this approach is very dangerous. The first 7 years of my OB career I was at one hospital and they did it that way too....didn't know any different or think anything different until the huge lawsuit that happened somewhere in the states when a mom died from an accidental mag bolus. We then changed to the 500ml bags with 20g mag and the 2 and 4gm boluses. I like it much better that way. At our facility just about a year ago, they had an accidental pitocin bolus due to an alaris pump camber failure...anything can happen.