Prevention of Hypothermia in Newborns during Transport

Abstract

Newborns may have hypothermia if they receive improper care of their body temperature.  In this retrospective study the outcomes of improvement in wrapping the newborns by added high density polyethylene bag between two layers of warm towels with wrapping only two layers of towels was compared with the former practice.  The newborns were divided into two groups.  The first group of 1,130 newborns born in 2003-2005 before the improvement and the second group of 914 newborns born in 2006-2007 after the improvement.  The outcomes showed that this improvement could reduce the incidence of hypothermia from 25.66 percent to 12.36 percent with statistically significance p < 0.0001 Odds ratio 2.4472, 95% CI 1.93, 3.10. Hypothermia can happen in winter and in summer even after the improvement in wrapping method.  Newborns should have been always kept warm. Every hospital should apply this type of extra plastic wrapping during newborn transport to reduce the incidence of hypothermia.