Journal of perinatology : official journal of the California Perinatal Association
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Can oral sucrose reduce the pain and distress associated with screening for retinopathy of prematurity?
Infants undergoing eye exams to screen for retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) demonstrate physiologic and behavioral manifestations of pain and distress. Oral sucrose has analgesic properties that might reduce these effects. ⋯ Oral [S] was not effective in reducing pain/distress from the ROP screening exam. Alternative strategies should be considered to achieve adequate pain relief.
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Preterm infants typically experience heavy phlebotomy losses from frequent laboratory testing in the first few weeks of life. This results in anemia, requiring red blood cell (RBC) transfusions. We recently introduced a bedside point-of-care (POC) blood gas analyzer (iSTAT, Princeton, NJ) that requires a smaller volume of blood to replace conventional Radiometer blood gas and electrolyte analysis used by our neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). The smaller volume of blood required for sampling (100 vs 300-500 microl), provided an opportunity to assess if a decrease in phlebotomy loss occurred and, if so, to determine if this resulted in decreased transfusions administered to extremely low birth weight (ELBW) infants. ⋯ Use of a bedside blood gas analyzer is associated with clinically important reductions in RBC transfusions in the ELBW infant during the first two weeks of life.
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Optimising home oxygen delivery in infants has important logistical and safety implications. This can be aided by having a suitable reference range of normal values for arterial oxygen saturation using pulse oximetry (SpO(2)). ⋯ These data may be used to test the benefits in the home or hospital of having a reference range of normal values for cumulative SpO(2).
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To assess the agreement of transcutaneous carbon dioxide (TcPCO(2)) and end tidal carbon dioxide (PetCO(2)) with arterial carbon dioxide (PaCO(2)) values in infants < 28 weeks gestational age. ⋯ A moderate agreement with a wide variation in individual values was observed between noninvasive methods and PaCO(2) in preterm infants in the first 24 hours. Noninvasive monitoring methods cannot be substituted for PaCO(2) analyses in preterm infants during this critical period.