magic markers on IV bags

I do not know with certainty. I would be interested in seeing it written down somewhere in text that it does or doesn't but I have always been told that it does, so we are not to mark the bag with a Marker. We mark a label and apply the label to the bag.

We use a lable also - or at the very least a strip of silk tape.

do you have a link to the info you found?

I have been told time and time again do not mark on the bag because the ink will leak through. So I always use tape or something else to label the bag.

That's what I was taught as well-use a label.

It says in my IV book, "Never write directly on a flexible plastic bag with a ballpoint pen or any type of indelible marker. The pen may puncture the bag and the indelible marker ink may absorb into the plastic and contaminate the infusate" ( Intravenous Infusion Therapy for Nurses, Principles and Practice, Second Edition, Dianne L. Josepson).


This is all it states, but we were also taught during class this same principle.

yes it does and that is why we use labels....

Found out my answer by testing it on an expired bag day before yesterday. Yes it does come through.

Do any of the forum members have knowledge of any scientific study that has been done to prove or disprove this phenomenon. I am really interested in the documented evidence of leaching of ink into a bag of intravenous fluids after writing on the bag with a sharpie or whatever permanent marker is used.