isolette humidity

[jscrn]

Does anyone have a specific protocol on humidity in their isolettes? We have a protocol for VLBW babies for the first three weeks of life and then nothing after that. I am working on revising it and would love some input. When do you start to wean the humidity? How often do you wean it? Do you ever have a baby in an isolette without humidity? I appreciate any feedback. Thanks.

[Sweeper933]

We just redid our humidity protocol. I don't remember the specifics of it right now - I can get you those in a few days.

From what I can remember...

Every baby

For babies

[NeoNurseTX, RN]

We do have kids in isolettes without humidity. We start at 70% usually for

[texas2007, BSN, RN]

We do have kids in isolettes without humidity. We start at 70% usually for

I think it's 70% for 7 days then wean by 5% qshift until we get to 40% and can turn it off, which is about DOL 10. Then if the UAC/UVC are gone, parents can hold! Of course there are exceptions...I've seen them write to leave the humidity, and seen them write to wean faster than protocol "so mom can hold sooner"...um no! I wish we did humidity as long as some of these other posts...I've noticed that by DOL 20ish the skin gets all dry and scaly more often than not.

[littleneoRN]

Hmm...interesting. We don't restrict holding just because the isolette is humidified. Do you think this is because it is thought that they wouldn't tolerate being held in a non-humidified environment? As our criteria for humidification are tighter, we probably humidify less kids and they are more likely to be less stable during that time---so they probably aren't being held daily or anything yet. Just curious.

[cc_nurse]

Ours is

[dawnebeth]

One of our nurse practitioners is a skin specialist, so we have a protocol, which if I recall, is 80% for a week, then 60 percent for seven days, then 50 percent for another two weeks or so. The parents can hold the baby, even if they are in a humidified isolette, as long as the preemie is stable enough, which isn't all that often.

Dawn

[dawnebeth]

I forgot--yes, we frequently have older preemies in an isolette without humidity. I'm thinking, if about thirty weeks at birth, we don't start humidity.

Dawn

[NICUnurseKatie]

We just re-vamped our humidity protocol to go along with the NANN guidelines. We begin humidity at around 65-75% or per MD order. Then it is slowly weaned. It is turned off by DOL 10. There is actually research stating that after the tenth day of life there is no skin benefit to keep a preemie on humidity. The risk of developing water-bourne infections outweighs the temp benefits. This was kind of hard to take in, because we used to leave kids on for weeks. But since we've changed, we've seen no difference in skin outcomes.

[grlgid]

we don't use humidity at all in our isolettes. If they are wee (under 800g I think the protocol is now) they get 5 days of aquaphor to help with the fluid loss thru the skin but otherwise nada. They keep talking about trying out humidity since we got our first giraffe a year or so ago but nothing has happened yet.

Tina

[twizzlers67]

Does anyone have any tips on how to get things to stick to your baby when they're on 70% humidity? Ex. Leads, temp probe, tegaderm. I feel like I have to change them out so many times in a shift to get them to stick!

[SteveNNP, MSN, NP]

Does anyone have any tips on how to get things to stick to your baby when they're on 70% humidity? Ex. Leads, temp probe, tegaderm. I feel like I have to change them out so many times in a shift to get them to stick!

See if you can get Limb leads ( gel leads with soft cloth strips that velcro around 2 arms and a leg. They hold in place well. I think thet are the "Kittycat" brand.

Temp probes are a pain to stick. Avoid tegaderm, as the probe tends to erode the skin when held in place under it.