Heelsticks vs. Venepuncture

[nicuRN2007]

Do all NICU's use heelsticks only for routine lab draws. We are only supposed to use heelsticks. For some babies, I find heelsticks to be more traumatic than venepuncture, especially those who just don't want to bleed and those with very thin skin. What do you all think?

[cathys01]

It depends on how many labs need to be drawn. The usual CBC & BMP would get just a heelstick. Anything more than that (like coags or chromosome analysis) would definitely get a venipuncture or even an arterial stick (if the veins are bad or if you need to "save the vein" for future access).

[dawngloves, BSN, RN]

If a baby needs mutiple sticks, you best save those veins for access. If they are a bad bleeder and I can't get enough or my CBC clots fast I get the docs to try a venous stick.

[BittyBabyGrower, MSN, RN]

We also use heelsticks, don't want to be using up veins we need for IV's. If a kid needs a ton of labs, we usually do an art stick.

[georgiagalRN]

We also use heelsticks, don't want to be using up veins we need for IV's. If a kid needs a ton of labs, we usually do an art stick.

We usually do the same. If it's just one lab or two, we do heelstick. If we need a blood culture or numerous labs, we do an arterial stick. We usually only stick venous if that is our last resort. We try to save our veins for IV's.

[ScammRNC]

we use venipuncture and arterial sticks for most everything. kids that are going to be on ivf's long term get picc's pretty early on. we haven't had many problems of using up too many veins on our babies.

[nicuRN2007]

Thank you all for your replies. I was just curious what goes on out there in other NICU's.