Pneumogram guidlines.

[dawngloves, BSN, RN]

Do you do this on all your preemie discharges? Can the parents hold while the test is going on? What other guidlines have you?

[Jolie, BSN]

No holding or handling of the infant during testing. We require 12 hours of solid sleep time, so the machine is turned off when the baby is awake or receiving care.

[Gompers, BSN, RN]

Oh man...we're really behind over here. What IS a pneumogram?!?!

[Jolie, BSN]

LOL! We are probably the ones who are behind the times, as pneumogram is an old term. We are talking about sleep studies for apnea and bradycardia prior to DC.

[dawngloves, BSN, RN]

It's an additional chest leads and pulse ox along with a thermistor, (nasal cannula type thing under the nose to measure respirations) and a pH probe inserted into the esophegus. All to check for apnea, what type of apnea and reflux.

We've been debating on how to feed an infant during this.

[BittyBabyGrower, MSN, RN]

We have a tech that does all that now...thank goodness! We only do the probe if there aren't responding to the reflux meds. When we have a probe in we just feed as normal. When the baby is on the sleep study the parents can hold for feeds, that is all, the baby has to be in bed or in the corificeat (for the one hour corificeat challenge). We run them usually 8 hours.

[Gompers, BSN, RN]

Oooookay...we do them, but we call them "sleep studies" instead.

Not all babies get them - just those that are having a lot of bradys and can't seem to make the "seven day countdown" of no bradys before discharge. We used to use them for reflux, but since so many of our kids are on Zantac, the pH probe study is useless. If a baby is faced with monitors at home, though, we'll do a sleep study to see if it's central apnea or more related to feedings, so they know whether they need to increase the caffiene or reflux meds.

We don't let the parents hold except to feed these babies, and it lasts 12 hours. We used to do 24 hour studies and we personally liked those better because we felt they were more accurate. If the baby is on a cannula, we have to remove it and put the baby in an oxygen tent for the test, because the cannula prongs and airflow is thought to interfere with the test. So if that is the case, we kind of hold up the baby under the hood for feeds and don't hold them at all. The babies on room air we'll hold, but put back immediately after feeds.

A tech from Respiratory Therapy sets up and takes down the monitors and places the pH probe.

[Moonriver1]

Does anyone know if there is a recommended guideline for when a pneumogram should be done? We had some babies that are 34 weeks and there has been some dispute over whether or not the study should wait until they are 35 weeks.

[elizabells, BSN, RN]

We don't do these at all. Corificeat tests, yes, but not sleep studies. We also don't send babies home on apnea monitors.

[EricJRN, MSN, RN]

We do about the same, elizabells. Car seat challenges - yes; sleep studies - no. We send the occasional kiddo home with an apnea monitor.

[Sweeper933]

We do about the same, elizabells. Car seat challenges - yes; sleep studies - no. We send the occasional kiddo home with an apnea monitor.

We also do the exact same thing (I had never even heard of a pneumogram...)

[RainDreamer, BSN, RN]

We don't do these either. I've never even heard of them. They tend to like them to have at least 5-7 days of no As & Bs before being discharged.