Low Flow Oxygen

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If you have a baby on 100cc to the wall, why do we express this as 0.01 L/min? If there are 1000cc in 1 L, then 100/1000= 0.1. What is the calculation to get to 0.01 L/min? And if it were 60cc, would you express it as 0.006?

Thank you for your help, everyone.

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If you have a baby on 100cc to the wall, why do we express this as 0.01 L/min? If there are 1000cc in 1 L, then 100/1000= 0.1. What is the calculation to get to 0.01 L/min? And if it were 60cc, would you express it as 0.006?

"We" don't express 100cc as 0.01L/min. 100mL = 0.1L whether it's liquid or flow.

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Have you asked someone on your unit what the rationale for this is?

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Specializes in NICU.
If you have a baby on 100cc to the wall, why do we express this as 0.01 L/min?

First, we never use mL of oxygen. 100 cc is 1/10th of a liter or 0.1 liter. 0.01 L/min would be 10cc/min of oxygen. We rarely have babies on wall O2. Most babies are on a blender that mixes oxygen and air to provide a percentage of oxygen. Once the baby reaches 1-2L/ min at 21% and SaO2 of 95-100%, the oxygen is discontinued.

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Thank you! I was certain that this makes no sense from a mathematical standpoint. I've asked on my unit and no one can give me a straight answer.

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Yes, and I'm given some roundabout answer that doesn't make sense mathematically. Outside of the NICU, I asked an anesthesiologist and another RT, as well as a pediatric resident and the consensus is that 100cc/min is 0.1L/min, period. I'm glad I'm not missing something, and that this actually doesn't make sense.

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My NICU does use cc/min of oxygen usually for chronic babies. But where I came from, we did not. So, this is very new to me. But, thank you for confirming that 0.01L/min is not equal to 100cc/min.

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