Normal Newborn Lab Values

Don't let your co-workers discourage you, it's great that you are trying to learn the labs. Over the years I've worked with nurses who have that "you should already know this" look perfected.........what I found out is that most of them didn't know. I work in a huge level III NICU and we still have nurses that don't understad labs.

There are a couple of good (I think) reference books. Protocols in Neonatal Nursing by Carole Kenner, Stephanie Rockwern Amlung, and Ann Applewhite Flandermeyer. The book costs about $45 (or $20 used from Amazon.com) and is over 700 pages. It's a paperback and doesn't take up too much room. Also, Comprehensive Neonatal Nursing by Carole Kenner, Ann Brueggemeyer, and Laurie Porter Gunderson. It's pricey, right at $115, 1200+ pages of just about anything you can run across in an NICU. It's one of those weight-lifting text books like you carried in nursing school. Both have lists of common lab values.

If I remember right, a few years ago Neonatal Network ran a good article about CBC's explaining what abnormal results meant. Would your lab have a list of neonatal norms that you could copy?

Good luck!!

I'm at a teaching hospital and I know there are "cheat sheets" for the residents that come in monthly that have all of the protocols in one very condensed space. See if you have anything like that available! :)

Lab values will vary based on gestational age and postnatal age. What is normal for a term infant will not be normal for a 24 weeker. I suggest looking at the tables provided in A. A. Fanaroff, R.J.Martin, Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine. This will give you an idea of how lab values can vary based on gestational age and postnatal age in days.

Hope this helps! :)

Pip