Positioning question

[rnpedinights]

I work in a children's hospital OR and we have a question about egg crate. Some staff think it should be placed face up to distribute pressure some think face down as it leaves marks after long procedures. I have done some research and can't find an answer. What is the practice at your hospitals? I want to protect my patients but am not sure which is the correct placement for egg crate foam?

[wooh, BSN, RN]

On the floors we don't even use egg crate anymore, supposedly just creates egg sized pressure points.

[elizanne]

I work in the NICU at a children's hospital. Same as wooh, we don't use egg crates anymore due to pressure points; we stopped about a month ago. Not sure what the policy is for our OR.

[Ilovethe80s]

Interesting. We don't have a policy regarding which side is up against the patient, but all the nurses I work with and I put the crate side up. I've never seen it leave a marking on the patient, but I'm only about a year and a half deep into my OR job, so there's prob still so much I haven't experienced yet. Perhaps AORN has something more specific about this subject.

[jeckrn, BSN, RN]

Depending on where it is b

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eing placed depends on which side is used. If it is straight foward like under the feet we use it face up but if it has to go in gaps of the bed etc it can be rolled up, or face up depending on the patient and the procedure. Over all we do not use eggcrate very often since the beds are already padded.

As far as floors using eggcrate, I have not seen it used in a long time with the increase of speciality beds.

[ChristineAdrianaRN, BSN, RN]

I'm also at a children's hospital, and we do the bumpy side up. Never seen any issues.

[CIRQL8]

I don't think that it really matters. Like the shiny or dull side of the aluminum foil....

That being said; evidenced based practice is showing that gel padding, rolls, etc are much more effective and safe pressure reducing devices than is egg-crate foam. Also, pads for beds are now usually tempur-pedic (or some other equivalent brand), and is a pressure-reducing material. No further materials needed.

Sent from my iPad (so excuse any typos and autocorrects!!) using allnurses.com

[canesdukegirl, BSN, RN]

We use egg crate foam with the face up. At the end of a lengthy procedure, I have seen where the egg crate foam left marks on the pt. To help combat this, I usually place egg crate foam in a pillow case to further diffuse pressure.