Nicu Reflection In Nursing
For the hospital reflection journal, I chose to discuss my experience in the place I could perceive myself working in during my nursing career – the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). My NICU hospital experience occurred on Sunday, March 26, 2017 at the Honor Health Scottsdale Shea center. My nurse and I were assigned to two premature infants – a 4-week-old female and an 8-week-old male. The infant I decided to do my assignment on was the 4-week-old female. She was born on 02/20/2017 at 25 weeks and 4 days to a G4P1 mother. Her birth weight was 1 pound 11 oz and her current weight is 2 pounds 14 ounces. She is received 25 mL of donor breast milk every 3 hours through an NG tube, with 0.75 mL of liquid protein. Due to her immature lungs and
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ROP results after abnormal blood vessels grow throughout the retina and tissues behind the eye of the infant. Overtime, these abnormal blood vessels may break, due to their fragility, and leak into the retina. This results in retinal detachment, the main cause of visual impairment and blindness in premature infants (National Eye Institute, 2014). Because these blood vessels did not retain the time to grow appropriately, these vessels may lack adequate oxygen and nutrients. While oxygenation is provided in the incubator, the health care team must maintain oxygen within a fine range, as the retinas appear to be very sensitive to the amount of oxygen supplied. In the NICU, the nurse provided me with a chart for ROP guidelines – Red, yellow, and green – which was dictated by the premature infant’s gestation. Depending on where the infant placed on the chart, nursing interventions were given, including the preferred range of oxygen saturation. For the four-week-old female I helped take care of, she landed in yellow, which required her oxygen saturation alarms to be set between 80 and 95%. While it remains acceptable for an adult’s oxygen levels to stand greater than 95%, extremally high oxygenation is avoided in premature infants. Oxygen saturation levels must be monitored and kept at less than 95% to prevent diseases, such as retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) and bronchopulmonary dysplasia, but above 80% to prevent diseases, such as cerebral palsy. It remains as a balancing act to provide an adequate environment to the premature
ROP results after abnormal blood vessels grow throughout the retina and tissues behind the eye of the infant. Overtime, these abnormal blood vessels may break, due to their fragility, and leak into the retina. This results in retinal detachment, the main cause of visual impairment and blindness in premature infants (National Eye Institute, 2014). Because these blood vessels did not retain the time to grow appropriately, these vessels may lack adequate oxygen and nutrients. While oxygenation is provided in the incubator, the health care team must maintain oxygen within a fine range, as the retinas appear to be very sensitive to the amount of oxygen supplied. In the NICU, the nurse provided me with a chart for ROP guidelines – Red, yellow, and green – which was dictated by the premature infant’s gestation. Depending on where the infant placed on the chart, nursing interventions were given, including the preferred range of oxygen saturation. For the four-week-old female I helped take care of, she landed in yellow, which required her oxygen saturation alarms to be set between 80 and 95%. While it remains acceptable for an adult’s oxygen levels to stand greater than 95%, extremally high oxygenation is avoided in premature infants. Oxygen saturation levels must be monitored and kept at less than 95% to prevent diseases, such as retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) and bronchopulmonary dysplasia, but above 80% to prevent diseases, such as cerebral palsy. It remains as a balancing act to provide an adequate environment to the premature