NRP question

[jimmyd787]

im a medic at a children's hospital and took a NRP class to get some of the 36 hrs/year continuing education i have to get to keep my medic license. in the class there were RN, RRT and medics teaching it and a NICU nurse said "don't give narcan to crack babies because it can cause them to have seizures" 10 years ago i would have argued with them in the class but i'm getting too old for that so i just shut up. i thought it was wrong and looked it up and found this:

http://www.fda.gov/cder/foi/label/2002/16636slr054lbl.pdf

NARCAN is an essentially pure opioid antagonist, i.e., it does not possess the "agonistic" or morphine-like properties

characteristic of other opioid antagonists. When administered in usual doses and in the absence of opioids or agonistic effects of other opioid antagonists, it exhibits essentially no pharmacologic activity.

am i missing soemthing??

jim

paramedic

RN student

[chare]

Jim,

Mothers who have abused crack frequently abuse other illicit drugs as well. If this is the case and the mother was abusing narcotics as well then the administration of the Narcan could precipitate an acute withdrawal syndrome in the infant. This is probably the main reason that the instructor made the statement that he/she did.

Additionally the 2005 AHA Guidelines for CPR and ECC, Part 13: Neonatal Resuscitation Guidelines no longer recommend the routine administration of Narcan during the initial resuscitation phase.

[lovemyjob]

Crack addicts usually arent great historians, especially re: their own drug use!

Plus, better to intubate than risk sudden withdrawal.