Labor and Delivery Math help

7.2 mu/min i guess?

what you need to know to work this problem is that 10 units of pitocin in 1000 ml of iv solution gives you 10 mu/ml (page 958, 2007 intravenous medications, 23rd edition, by betty l. gahart and adrienne r. nazareno). you can use that 10 mu/ml figure in calculating this problem or figure out what the mu's per 1000 mls would be.

10 mu/ml =

x

mu/1000 ml, cross multiply

x

= 10,000

so, there are 10,000 mu of pitocin in 1000 ml of the d5ns.

then, work the problem:

10,000 mu/1000 ml

(dose on hand)

x 12 ml/1 hour

(dose being given)

x 1 hour/60 minutes

(conversion factor) =

2 mu/minute

(dose patient is receiving)

if you work this using the 10 mu/ml figure, the problem becomes

10 mu/1 ml

(dose on hand)

x 12 ml/1 hour

(dose being given)

x 1 hour/60 minutes

(conversion factor)

=

2 mu/minute

was that the answer that was given in your book?

the answer is 2mu/min. i have never heard of mu before. not in my book which is calculate with confidence. how did you know to slove for mu when it wasnt stated in the question? was the reason because it was pitocin??

7.2 i guess?

Seeing the "mU" was an odd thing, so I went to a nursing drug reference book and looked at how this drug (oxytocin, Pitocin) is supplied. The information was listed there. The book I used was an IV drug reference and I gave the name and page number. This information was also given in my other drug reference book, but it was more vague about it. It would also be in the PDR monograph of the drug as well. Pitocin is only given IV and is supplied in vials of 10 Units per 1 mL. That 1 mL is injected into IV solution for the IV drip. The conversion is 1,000 mU = 1 unit.

This kind of problem would be an application question. You had to know that the Pitocin (oxytocin) is supplied in a vial of 10 Units/1 mL. You find that information by consulting a drug reference book. There are several other drug problems that are similar to this where you need to know how the drug is supplied because that information is not given to you in the question in order to figure out how to titrate the proper drip rate. To do these, you need to consult a drug reference. There are only a handful of drugs that are unique like this and pitocin is one of them.

Thank you so much for your help! I talked with a friend who is a semester ahead of me and she has never seen one of those type of questions on any of the tests. But Im sure it will be seen at some point during our schooling. I will keep this as a references.