Archives of disease in childhood. Fetal and neonatal edition
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Arch. Dis. Child. Fetal Neonatal Ed. · Jan 2013
Pulse oximetry screening for congenital heart defects in newborn infants: an evaluation of acceptability to mothers.
Introducing neonatal screening procedures may not be readily accepted by parents and may increase anxiety. The acceptability of pulse oximetry screening to parents has not been previously reported. ⋯ Pulse oximetry screening was acceptable to mothers and FP results were not found to increase anxiety. Factors leading to differences in participation and satisfaction across ethnic groups need to be identified so that staff can support parents appropriately.
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Arch. Dis. Child. Fetal Neonatal Ed. · Jan 2013
Electrolytes in sick neonates - which sodium is the right answer?
Hypoproteinaemia leads to spuriously high-sodium values when measured by indirect ion-selective electrodes (ISE) as used in main laboratory analysers compared with direct ISE employed in point-of-care analysers (POCT). The authors, therefore, investigated the occurrence of hypoalbuminaemia and its effect on measured sodium from POCT and the main laboratory analyser of neonatal intensive-care samples. ⋯ Hypoalbuminaemia is common in sick neonates and monitoring electrolytes using POCT and laboratory analysers frequently yield significantly different results with consequent misclassification. In these patients, measurement of electrolytes by direct ISE (blood-gas analyser) may be more accurate.