pins and rubberbands for CPAP

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In our unit to secure CPAP tubings we r currently using safety pins and rubberbands.

Is there any other way of securing ???

safety pins can be dangerous at times!!

just interested to know how the rest of the world does?

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Specializes in NICU.

Our system is all velcro straps

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Specializes in Neonatal.

We used to secure cpap that way, now we use the hats with the velcro straps.

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Specializes in NICU.

We also use safety pins and rubberbands. I have never accidentally stuck a kid in the head with a safety pin, and they stay much more secure than they do when we use the hats that come with the CPAP prongs.

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Specializes in Neonatal ICU (Cardiothoracic).

We use rubber bands and safety pins.

If the baby is very active and the prongs won't stay in place, sometimes I use a velcro pediatric trach tie behind the head, with the ends wrapped around the tubing.

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Specializes in NICU.

When we predominately used bubble cpap, we used the hat/rubber band/pins routine, now we are almost exclusively using the Sipap machine which has a different set up-uses head gear instead. I think its much easier to work with.

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Specializes in NBN, NICU.

Thats the way we did it many many years ago.. Now we use the hat with the velcro straps... I think they may be a bit more expensive....

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Specializes in NICU.

We usually tape the tubing to the generic pink/blue striped L&D hats. Sometimes with kids on it longer, parents will bring in their own hats to use but these are a pain bc they are usually too big. In the bigger kids, the white foam things in the circumcision kits can be manipulated a certain way to go around the tubing. I've also seen hats rigged with a bunch of poseys end to end.

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We currently use the infant flow cpap from Viasys. The headgear is amazing. It's the best I've ever worked with. There does need to be some education about positioning the headgear because we've had a skin breakdown issue. But this could have been easily prevented with the proper education. You can also move back and forth between nasal mask and prong cpap and the equiptment is very soft. Here's a link to a picture of the head gear...

Cpap headgear

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Specializes in NICU.
We currently use the infant flow cpap from Viasys. The headgear is amazing. It's the best I've ever worked with. There does need to be some education about positioning the headgear because we've had a skin breakdown issue. But this could have been easily prevented with the proper education. You can also move back and forth between nasal mask and prong cpap and the equiptment is very soft. Here's a link to a picture of the head gear...

Cpap headgear

We use the exact same system. It is really easy to use once you have the education on it. The mask and prongs are really soft, which has helped with the breakdown problem. We haven't had one case of any skin break down d/t cpap since switching to this system.

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Do you ever have issues with the white plastic part sliding around and coming into contact with the baby's forehead? A couple of our babies ended up with scars on their foreheads from people not readjusting this piece. We trained everyone and we don't have the problem anymore but it was frustrating at first.

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Specializes in NICU.
Do you ever have issues with the white plastic part sliding around and coming into contact with the baby's forehead? A couple of our babies ended up with scars on their foreheads from people not readjusting this piece. We trained everyone and we don't have the problem anymore but it was frustrating at first.

I don't believe we've ever had a problem with that... it's supposed to stay velcroed to the hat - I've never seen it slide that far down with out the nurse noticing it and fixing it.

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