A primer on newborn screening.

Metabolic disorders are individually rare, but when considered together as a disease entity are relatively frequent, occurring in 1 in 1000 to 1 in 3000 infants. Some disorders can have devastating and irreversible outcomes if not diagnosed early and treated promptly. Newborn screening is a vital step in identifying infants with inborn metabolic disorders, hemoglobinopathies, infectious processes, and congenital endocrinopathies; the goal is early recognition and treatment.

Treatment of neonatal pain without a gold standard: the case for caregiving interventions and sucrose administration.

Although many different neonatal pain assessment scales are used in clinical research, no gold-standard instrument exists. The multitude of pain assessment scales used has, in fact, threatened the validity of many studies and confused the construct of pain. This integrative review of the neonatal pain literature provides the recommendations from practice guidelines and the current evidence for modifying the pain response prior to and during common painful procedures.

Comparison of two microenvironments and nurse caregiving on thermal stability of ELBW infants.

Purpose: This study tested a novel bioinstrumented radiant warmer (RW), designed to provide a reduced-intervention nursing caregiving environment (RINCE) on the ambient and body surface temperature stability of extremely low birth-weight (ELBW) infants (< 1,000 g) during caregiver disruptions. The RINCE was compared with a control bed consisting of a standard RW, modified with a Plexiglas hood (Rohm and Haas, Philadelphia, PA) and an external humidity source.

Subjects: The sample consisted of 10 extremely low birth-weight infants.

Medication errors: analysis not blame.

This article summarizes current knowledge regarding neonatal medication errors and explicates the key concepts of human error and system error. A case report illustrates the sources of error. Medication error analysis must go beyond the blaming of individuals for active errors and explore the latent errors that exist in a complex health care environment.