To cover or not to cover: lipids and phototherapy

[wee one rn]

Hello all!

One hospital that I worked at covered lipid tubing with aluminum foil when a baby was under phototherapy and another didn't, so I'm wondering what everyone else does.

All input will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks :nuke:

[danissa, LPN, LVN]

We dont cover Lipid, period, but interested in the reasons why others might, especially with phototherapy. Does it accelerate the breakdown of the fats and make it unstable??

Interesting thing to look up, i'm gonna look into it tomorrow.

We cover all TPN's with a black cover btw.

Iv'e never come across covering any IV fluid with aluminium foil before!

[SteveNNP, MSN, NP]

I've heard of units doing that, but I've never worked anywhere that did it. We cover our TPN and insulin gtts with light-filtering bags. Lipids are changed q 24, and I wouldn't think that IL could break down much faster than that....

[EricJRN, MSN, RN]

We foil all lipids, phototherapy or not. :grn:

[elizabells, BSN, RN]

I wonder if it has to do with the DEHP in some IV tubing - do those who foil their lipids use non-DEHP tubing?

[dawngloves, BSN, RN]

Does it accelerate the breakdown of the fats and make it unstable??

If that's the case, I'm gonna request all my pts be under photo! :chuckle

[TiffyRN, BSN, PhD]

Our unit changed to non-DEHP tubing a couple of years ago, but we weren't foiling the tubing before that. It just sounds like more fun than I'd ever want to get into. We do have that little brown cover bag over the actual bag of lipids, but that's all.

[iHeartNICU]

We have a special tubing for lipids. It's a dark brown, kind of an iodine color because lipids are light sensitive apparently. However, the actual lipids are not covered at all so I don't exactly understand the logic. We were told that a few years ago they did actually cover the lipids too but at some hospital somewhere a whole days worth of lipids infused in about 2 hours on a baby and killed him. It would have been noticed more easlily if the lipids weren't covered, so now we don't cover the lipids....just have special tubing.

[Sweeper933]

We don't cover out lipids - tubing or the syringe. We do cover our TPN w/ a brown plastic bag. From what I've heard - when the TPN has iron in it, you have to cover it. Same reason the bottle of iron that we give PO to the babies is in a brown glass bottle.

[BittyBabyGrower, MSN, RN]

We dont' cover IL at all, TPN is in an opaque bag.

[NICU_babyRN, BSN, RN]

TPN is covered by a brown plastic bag...IL is just hung...no special tubing or foil!

[NeoNurseTX, RN]

We foil all lipids, phototherapy or not. :grn:

haha, and it looks so .. strange!