Infant Incubators

Diseases of Incubator Infants

infant incubators — Tue, 15 May 2007 06:47:49 +0000

It is manifestly impossible to review the entire field of these affections, as the premature infant may have all the diseases of full term children. Several affections, however, are peculiarly severe in the premature infant. First. Sepsis occurs in a great many, and usually comes from the bowel, either as an intoxication or a general infection. Broncho-pneumonia is another fatal complication, and is not usually suspected because the infant shows such feeble signs of life. A subnormal temperature and cyanosis, with loss of weight, are sometimes the only symptoms, and they might be explained by other things. Second. Ophthalmia neonatorum, when it occurs, takes on a very virulent form, perhaps due to the warm air making conditions favorable to the growth of bacteria. (more…)

Care to be Given Incubator Infants

infant incubators — Tue, 15 May 2007 06:47:14 +0000

The premature or debile infant requires infinitely greater care and watchfulness than the healthy newborn. It is more liable to sepsis, to digestive and respiratory complications, to ophthalmia, and, in general, exhibits a weakness against all noxious influences. The writer cannot here enter into a discussion of the various methods of treatment, but will describe the course he instituted at the Lying-In Hospital. The incubator. The ventilation need not be altered for each infant. Just enough to keep air changing is right, and the nurse attends to this by operating the damper in the fresh air flue. In winter less air is needed, in summer the valve is wide open. (more…)

Indications for the Incubator

infant incubators — Tue, 15 May 2007 06:46:17 +0000

At first the couveuse was used only for premature and congenitally feeble infants, but its success with these soon caused the indications to be extended, until the instrument was abused it is being employed for nearly all the ills of early infancy. Then the error was recognized. And recently Delestre has stated that the couveuse should only be used for infants with subnormal temperature, and that as soon as the child has a temperature that remains at 98.6° F. it should be put in its cradle. This, to my mind, is also an error. The incubator has more extensive use than this; that is, the incubator herein described. For the Auvard incubators built on that plan, the statement may hold, for these incubators are little more than warm boxes and do nothing but heat the baby. (more…)

Ventilation

infant incubators — Tue, 15 May 2007 06:45:41 +0000

This has given us a great deal of trouble, and those familiar with the difficulties attending the natural ventilation of houses will appreciate the obstacles met here. The change in the room temperature, the extremes of outside temperature, the faulty construction of houses, the opening and closing of doors, the dry days, the wet, muggy days, the high and low barometric pressure, but especially the direction of the wind and its strength have prepared for us no end of problems. Without going into these difficulties, I will describe the system as it stands today, practically perfect. The air is taken from a low point outside, where there is some sunlight, and led to the incubator by a three inch pipe, it passes through a cotton filter at the side of the lower chamber, passes beneath the water pan, under which it is spread by a curved plate, it is heated, and therefore rises through the flues at the side of the upper chamber. (more…)

The Heating System

infant incubators — Tue, 15 May 2007 06:44:46 +0000

The heating system consists of a water pan inside the box near its floor, connected with a boiler on the right outside the chamber. This is in all respects similar to any hot water heating system. The premature infant requires a warm, moist atmosphere, of a definite tension, and also a sure and constant amount of radiant heat. The air must be 86° to 93° F, the bed must be 94° to 100° F, and these must vary proportionately as the incubator is set at one or the other degrees of temperature. These figures were obtained by thermometric observations. The radiant heat is supplied from the top of the pan and controlled by the distance between it and the bed. The air is heated by the under surface of the pan. (more…)

Infant Incubator – Introduction

infant incubators — Tue, 15 May 2007 06:44:05 +0000

In the middle ages premature infants were wrapped in the skin of a sheep, with the wool on, or put in a jar of feathers. Later they were enveloped in cotton. Sterne, in the middle of the eighteenth century, relates how the child of a physician was raised by the “same artifice that one used to make chickens hatch in Egypt. He put his son in an oven, properly constructed, heated regularly, the temperature of which was regulated by suitable instruments. In 1857 Denuce described a double walled bath tub, with water in the interspace for the rearing of feeble infants. In 1866 Crede of Leipzig, used an identical contrivance, although he did not publish it until 1884. In 1880 Tarnier had Odile Martin, a poultry raiser of the Jardin des Plantes, construct an infant incubator on the plan of a chicken incubator. (more…)