What are the balls OB nurses wear on their badge for? Why do some have cord clamps on their badge?

klone, MSN, RN · Nov 22, 2019

The balls are "belly balls" that are supposed to represent the size of an infant's stomach at 1 day old, 3 days old, etc. I have no clue why a nurse would wear a cord clamp on her badge.

labordude, BSN, RN · Nov 23, 2019

13 hours ago, klone said:
The balls are "belly balls" that are supposed to represent the size of an infant's stomach at 1 day old, 3 days old, etc.

Uggh, please don't get me started on those things. ?

OhioBPH · Nov 25, 2019

The hospital here nurses will have a cord clamp on their lanyard to hold other items to their lanyard if needed (rings, etc).

Drezfeath · Nov 28, 2019

On 11/23/2019 at 7:47 AM, labordude said:
Uggh, please don't get me started on those things. ?

Well, now I have to know..

labordude, BSN, RN · Nov 28, 2019

6 hours ago, Drezfeath said:
Well, now I have to know..

Oh where to start. But first let me preface this (and it saddens me that I need to even add this preface) and say that I'm super breastfeeding friendly, supportive, and I've been a CLC for almost 10 years.

That being said, the belly balls are based on what in the best case scenario is a flawed interpretation (flat out misreading) of a single study performed in 1920. Since none of the people I've ever talked to have ever heard of this study, I'm gonna go with, it's what they were taught. But it's wrong. The newborn stomach doesn't have a capacity of 5mL, it's actually closer to 20+ mL based on multiple studies that were part of a meta-analysis in 2013. For reference, that initial 5mL amount came from a 1920 study and is not even close to what the authors concluded*. I can give all sorts of potential reasons why people choose to continue with the 5mL and marble/ping pong/egg progression model, but it would all be speculation and not worth the time. I have seen some of the products labeled with size of feeding which in my opinion is slightly less misleading than saying this is the size of their stomach.

Further discussion of the Scammon and Doyle (1920) study: The apparent discrepancy here comes from the wording used by the authors. They use the term physiologic capacity but define it as the amount ingested. Later in the study they use the term anatomic capacity and reference an amount of 25-35mL based on a variety of observations and measuring techniques.

In 2013, Bergman did a literature review of available research and concluded that the actual capacity of the newborn stomach is at least 20mL with some studies showing slightly lower but more showing higher.

References:

Bergman, N. J. (2013), Neonatal stomach volume and physiology suggest feeding at 1‐h intervals. Acta Paediatr, 102: 773-777. doi:10.1111/apa.12291

SCAMMON RE, DOYLE LO. OBSERVATIONS ON THE CAPACITY OF THE STOMACH IN THE FIRST TEN DAYS OF POSTNATAL LIFE. Am J Dis Child. 1920;20(6):516–538. doi:https://doi.org/10.1001/archpedi.1920.01910300056005