| Learning Objective #1: The learner will be able to recognized that the newborn temperature and arterial oxygen saturation decrease and heart rate increase by bath | |||
| Learning Objective #2: The learner will be able to recognized that Covering head after bath in newborn nursery could be strongly recommended as a routine nursing intervention. |
Method : Fifty-eight normal newborn infant who were born in a nursery unit of a hospital of a university affiliated, from Oct 2006 to Mar 2007 were enrolled in this study. Thirty-one newborn of experimental group was afforded covering head after bath and twenty-seven newborns of control group were not afforded covering.
The experimental treatment was bathing for 3minutes in water of 40°C followed by covering head cotton hat. Data was collected at 8 time points - before treatment(baseline), shortly after drying moisture, 30 minutes, 60 minutes, 90m minutes, 120 minutes, 180 minutes, 240 minutes after bath. Collected data was analyzed by repeated measures ANOVA.
Result : 1. The temperature decline shortly after bath and then gradual recovery was observed in both group. But the temperature was higher in experimental group than in control group at each time of measurement after bath (P=.000). 2. Changes of the heart rates were significant in both groups showing same pattern of increasing heart rate shortly after bath and than in control group at each time of measurement after bath(p=.000). 3. SaO2 was decreased shortly after bath and then recovered in both groups. There was significant differences of overall level of SaO2 between two groups(p=.855).
Conclusion : The newborn temperature and SaO2 were decreased and heart rate was increased by bath and the effects of nursing intervention of covering head after bath were revealed as positive in this study. Covering head after bath in newborn nursery could be strongly recommended as a routine nursing intervention.