Humidity in Isolettes

[kitty29]

Maybe we are behind the times here: but we have reciently started to put all little babe's in Humidified Isolettes...50 - 75%.

This is new for me and I was wanting to know what you all do this? Do you change the isolettes any more frequently? Now we do so once a week.

I was wondering because my primary pt even after a bath with Everything changed in iso at 50% H smelled of "dirty feet" soon after the bath. We went down to 33% and today it was d/c...the babe was born at 26 5/7 now is 28 3/7. Her skin has always looked great.

Also is there any concern doing kangaroo care while baby is in this humidified Iso? I thought maybe there could be a quicker heat loss. We didn't experience a problem when at 33% H.

I'd love your input and conversation. Thanks! :)

[BittyBabyGrower, MSN, RN]

Hi :) We use humidity on our kids under a kilo. We start out at 50-70%, depending on the size, the smaller the baby, the higher we go on the humidity. We usually leave them in the humidity for a week and start weaning it. When we have the ELBW kids, we will leave them in about 40% humidity until their isolette temps start settling in around their NTE, then we will wean them. We don't change out the isolettes on the itsy bitsies..too stressful. I've never noticed a smell in the beds though.

The only problem we have really been having with the really high humidity is when we add phototherapy...then the kids kind of start to boil and we end up having to drop the humidity way down or turn it off, then their skin dries out and they look like little raisins!

We will also put low humidity in the beds with the kids on high flow NC's to keep the air moist..their little noses start to get yukky after a few days and this does help some. The kids temps are fine when they come out for a while. Kids on really high humidity are too sick to come out.

We have 2 attendings that will have us turn the humidity off if their are alot of open areas on the little kids, they feel that it contributes to yeast/fungus infections...it probably does to a small extent. Then we aquafor the heck out of them to keep their skin moist.

[kitty29]

Thanks for your reply BBG! I was hoping to have more replies, so either the others do as your hosp. does; or they don't use the Hum. Iso.'s?

We ended up d/c the hum. two days after I entered this note...and two days after that little sweetie started to get sick...sign. A & B's with desats...well intially the CRP was OK; showed sepsis tho within 3 days...we started antibiotics & a doxipram gtt! Now we are off a ventilated NCPAP only a straight NCPAP of 7...doing much better but still on the doxipram! Whew! She wore me out those couple of nights! Yesterday she was even KCaring wity her father (for the first time); it was wonderful!