Real Dumb Question re: Infant Vital Signs

[blondy2061h, MSN, RN]

One of my close friends has a 3 month old who needs frequent blood pressure checks. She's currently traveling quite far to take him to the provider's office for them, but hoping to learn to do them herself. I bought her a infant BP cuff. I was thinking I could give her A Littman Classic II SE I have that I don't use any more. I have never worked peds. Is it possible to use an adult stethoscope to take a BP on an infant, or is that totally undoable?

[PeakRN]

I don't want this to venture into giving medical advice but I would be more worried about why a infant needs frequent checks. Typically these are renal or cardiac babies who need closer monitoring than a simple vital sign check. Also I'm not sure how they are actually checking blood pressures; a fair number of pediatric cardiac clinics either doppler or palpate a systolic pressure to ensure better accuracy over time.

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

Child should have a visiting nurse coming to take his blood pressure or a dinamap in the home if parents are expected to take it. I had several infant patients at my last job who needed frequent blood pressure checks- two were renal patients, one on dialysis, and the other had a large hemangioendothelioma that compressed her renal artery.

[blondy2061h, MSN, RN]

I asked my friend about home nursing care. It won't be approved for just BP checks, but will be approved to teach her how to check the BP if she can get equipment. The child would still have regular follow up with the physician, of course.

[Julius Seizure]

I asked my friend about home nursing care. It won't be approved for just BP checks, but will be approved to teach her how to check the BP if she can get equipment. The child would still have regular follow up with the physician, of course.

It seems like if the visits to teach her would be approved, then the DME that was needed would also be approved. That way she could get the exact equipment that they recommend she use.

I wonder if she is supposed to call in on a regular basis with the BPs that she would be checking, or just calling if outside of a certain range, or what. I've seen cardiac babies be cared for at home by parents doing daily weight checks and pulse oximetry checks (with frequent phone calls to the cardiology nurse), but never BP monitoring.

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

I asked my friend about home nursing care. It won't be approved for just BP checks, but will be approved to teach her how to check the BP if she can get equipment. The child would still have regular follow up with the physician, of course.

I definitely had patients that I saw for blood pressure checks when I was a visiting nurse and the visits were approved- both by Medicaid and private insurance.