Teaching abdominal girth measurement

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My LPN student had a patient this week that had just finished abdominal paracentesis. In order to minimize the patients discomfort, I instructed the student to measure abdominal girth from side to side, marking the measurement points for consistency. As long as the markings are used consistently for each shift when measured, is this an acceptable alternative to measuring the entire girth? Any input would be greatly appreciated! Thank you. Any reference material would also be appreciated!

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The way we do it is to wrap the measuring tape around the widest point of the tummy, marking a line on both sides of the tape in several places so a person could measure exactly the next day by placing the tape in between the lines in the various spots. Make sense?

We use skin markers...

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Specializes in NICU, Infection Control.

That is the way I've always done it. Sometimes they get to lie on the tape measure if they can't be moved too much.

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