Risks of Misconnections in Umbilical Vessel Catheters

The birth of a baby in a family is definite to be a pleasurable event. Unfortunately, the matter tends to be problematic when the baby happens to be pre-term with a very low weight at birth. Sure, most neonatal units have adequate precautionary measures employed to stabilize the young infant. However, feeding the helpless, new born also tends to be difficult many a time as it would be unable to suckle at the breast of the mother thereby hampering proper nutrition.

Using an alternative means of feeding by utilizing specific enteral devices is the norm though. While using the intravenous route may be considered when all other ways of nutritional support fail, the concerned medical professional usually prefers to gastrointestinal or the enteral route over the other more invasive procedures.

There are a number of devices in the market at present, however. The right tube needs to selected and inserted as per the guidelines while trying to feed a premature baby in order to keep complications at bay. Any faulty tube inserted due to misconnections may prove to be fatal and needs to be avoided at all costs. No amount of penalty or suspension from duty would get the child back though making it all the more necessary to think of a fool proof solution.

What is ENFit?

Sure, the nurses and other care givers working within a neonatal unit happen to be highly trained and adept at taking care of underweight babies who are nutritionally challenged. Sadly, it is human to err and the overworked staff members of a hospital or nursing home may accidently misconnect the tubing resulting in fatal consequences. The health industry have woken up to the fact and come up with a new kind of connection termed as ENFit that is sure to obliterate the risks once and for all.

California has become the first State to enforce the changeover of all kinds of enteral equipment to ENFit that includes syringes, feeding sets and tubes along with the feeding bags employed to provide nutrients and medicines to the patient. The new form of connectors make it impossible to connect a feeding apparatus to a non-enteral one so that no patient, young or old would have the feeding tube connected to IV lines, urinary catheters or tubing for ventilation.

Necessity of ENFit

The clinics, medical facilities and health equipment manufacturers along with the dealers need to be trained in the process so that transferring to the ENFit connectors completely can be done smoothly and in a flawless manner. The transition has become all-important at the moment making every medical facility that encourages enteral feeding to adopt the ENFit connectors that comply with the prevalent ISO standards for safe connections.

The standards of connections must also be followed when it comes to using the umbilical vessel catheters for neonates as well.