Prevent Hypothermia PT

dawngloves, BSN, RN · May 12, 2009

Less than 30 weeks we immediately place in Neowrap and put a hat on their head. We admit into a humidified isolette (70% for the first 7 days) and then take them out of the Neowrap (unless it is a cold 24 weeker, but that's another story). Good luck!

SteveNNP, MSN, NP · May 14, 2009

Our infants [except for cardiacs and big stable hypoglycemics] are put in heated isolettes ASAP. We also use saran wrap on micros until we can get humidity started.

In a pinch we use heat lamps to bring up a hypothermic kid.

300g · May 18, 2009

In addition to plastic wrap, humidified isolette, etc., we use Transwarmer mattresses under the patient.

twinkletoes53 · May 19, 2009

first of all, when the baby is handed to you, you should have pre-warmed blankets in your arms. place the baby on a pre-warmed warmer, dry them off immediately. remove the wet blankets, so infant is laying on another layer of a dry, prewarmed blanket. place a hat on them. attach skin probe to abdomen. use a saran blanket over them---it reduces insensible water loss, and helps baby stabilize his temperature. again, make sure he is completely dried off! everything that touches the baby should have been on the warmer bed, so that your bp cuff and stethoscope are warm. and don't forget people that have cold hands, like i do! i run my hands under very warm water when i wash them.

there is a transport warming mattress we use, called "[color=#982d95]infatherm™ infant transport mattress".

you activate this by sqeezing the sides together. they will keep warm for several hours. when infant is moved to an isolette, he is wrapped with warm blankets; keep the infant on the transport warming mattress. it will go into the isolette with the baby.

when you get to nicu, you will probably admit to a warmer for your initial assessment. keep infant covered with saran wrap, with a hat on. control point on warmer should be set at 36.5-36.8. if your infant is cold, it's very important that you re-warm him slowly. in that case, your warmer's isc is set 0.5 degrees higher than the infant's skin temperature. when he reaches that point, you increase the warmer's isc by another 0.5 degrees. do not be tempted to re-warm rapidly by turning the warmer on full blast. this can cause multiple complications, including ivh.