Use of Burette

A burette is an inline calibrated chamber on a type of secondary administration IV tubing that can be attached to primary IV tubing in order to administer medications or fluids as an alternative to using small 50 mL or 100 mL bags of IV fluid. The spike of the burette tubing is connected to a larger container of IV fluid. Fluid from that larger container is allowed to flow into the burette which has a calibrated chamber so the amount of IV fluid allowed into it can be measured. These burettes can hold anywhere from 50-150 mLs. The drug being mixed in the chosen IV fluid (i.e. Solumedrol or Rocephin) would be added through an injection port at the top of the burette. There is a drip chamber at the bottom of the burette where the fluid in its chamber exits. The roller clamp on the tubing below the burette would be opened and the fluid containing IV fluid + medication would be allowed to infuse into the patient. Many of the burettes used for pediatrics are microdrip (60 gtts/mL). The end of the burette tubing is either piggybacked into an existing primary IV line and plugs into a saline lock or the port of a central line. When the chamber of the burette is empty, the infusion stops and will need the attention of the nurse.

The purpose of using a burette is to prevent accidental fluid overload. I have seen burettes used in NICUs as primary IV lines where 100 mLs of the main IV solution was placed into the burette at a time. Reason: they just don't like to hang IV fluid bags greater than 100 mL or 500 mL on this little guys even with IV pumps going because of the danger of some knucklehead accidentally leaving a pump running too fast. (Trust me--it happens.) Little babies can't take 200 mLs of fluid in an hour or two like an adult can.