Maintenence fluids

Hi,

Just doing some practice questions for paediatric maintenence fluids - do we round up/down accordingly or leave answer to decimal places??

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In practice, if I am using a calculator, I never round until I have completed all calculations at which time I will round to a level appropriate to the device I am using.

Only then will I round to a level appropriate to the device I am using.

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Also, if for eg a patient weights 13kg would we omit the second 10kg of body weight, so:

10 x 100 = 1000 (for the first 10kg body weight)

3 x 20 = 60 (for each kg after)

or would we somehow have to use the 50ml/kg for the 3kg as being second to the first 10kg body weight??

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First, I am not sure which formula you are using. If you are using the Holliday-Segar method, you would use the following to calculate total maintenance fluids, for a 24 hour period:

So, for a 13 kg patient, total maintenance fluids, for a 24 hour period, would be…

As for rounding. In clinical practice how you rounded this would depend on the accuracy of your infusion device, however most current pumps allow you to set a rate to 0.1 mL/hour. As for school, ask your instructor to how many decimal places you should round.