From:
dbrn2@aol.com
Date: 2001-03-11 06:17:00 UTC
Subject: air displacement in sq fluid administration
I am a RN with 20 years experience, several years in ICU settings.
If the fluid being administered is in a plastic bag, do not inject
air
in order to draw up fluid. you are introducing non sterile air into
the bag, and chances are no preservatives are present. in the icu
setting, we always de-air all iv bags before we hung them up, so
there would be no air in them.
it is super simple to get fluid out of a plastic iv bag. just clean
off the rubber stopper with etoh or acetone, puncture with needle and
put light pressure on bag to fill syringe. in icu's, we used to put
blood presssure cuffs on the bags and pump them up to 200mm/hg to do
quick infusions for massive blood loss when we would have someone
bleeding out on us, etc so the little bit of pressure you will put on
the iv bag is not enough to do any harm to the bag. do not reuse
needles, for the cost of a new needle, why risk problems??
if the fluid is in a vial, there is a negative pressure inside the
vial to be sure the rubber stopper doesn't come popping off under
pressure. you must displace the negative pressure in the vial by
injecting the same amount of air into the vial as the amount of fluid
you will be taking out. must clean rubber stopper first.
hope this helps and isn't too confusing