Hello,  I wonder about use of polyethylene bag in mangement of hypothermia occur after baby put in incubitor.
I know there is many studied about bags just after delivery during resuscitation.
But do you have protocols , guidlines, papers about using bags to manage hypothermia during NICU stay inside incubitor.

We routinely use the bag in the incubator for the first week in our ELBW. Our impression is that babies are more stable with it. I am not aware of any clinical trials showing efficacy though.

Interesting question! We do not, but in our level2 setting we only deliver infants from 28+0 weeks and onwards. (But we use bags for all <32weeks or <1500g at delivery unit stabilization)

would be possible study in a trial, but what should be a clinically relevant outcome?

But how long do you use bag? First 3-5 days or longer?

We also use plastic bag for babies in the incubator.. Not routinely, only when it temperature becomes unstable, it happens particularly in a single walled incubator..


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10 hours ago, Andrej Vitushka said:

But how long do you use bag? First 3-5 days or longer?

We usually stop using the bag once the baby's temperature is stabilised in the first 24 hours. But, we place them in a incubator with skin temperature monitoring and use humidity as per the baby's gestation. 

Beware of increased sepsis rates with extended use of plastic bags and be very aware of BPA content. Tecotherm Neo Whole Body Cooling device has ability to servocontrol core temp through selecting "Constant Rectal Temperature" mode and setting 37'C. 

@Hendrien Do you sometimes use the Tecotherm cooling madras for this purpose (keeping preterm infants 37'C)?

 

Not me personally but I know hospitals in SA that do neonatal surgery has used it to maintain temp in theatre. 

We are currently doing a study on the natural history of temperature in neonates in Southampton using a standardised protocol from delivery to admission to the NNU and in the first 24 hours under 31 weeks gestation. We only use plastic bags.