Educational Programme to Prevent Hypothermia in a Low Resource Setting NICU

Hypothermia is defined as

Methods: Data collected from admission book over a 6 month period from October2018 to March2019. Temperatures collated into hypothermia< 36.4, normal36.6-37.5 and high temperatures>37.5. All babies included.

The intervention was 3 half study days in April 2019 to midwives from labour ward postnatal ward and NICU nursing staff. Attended by more than 60 staff. Teaching after weekly meeting to medical and nursing staff on NIUC.

Results: Over the pre intervention study period there were 2263 admissions of which1905 had an admission temperature recorded. Between 52-68% admissions per month had an admission temperature of<36.5.

Post intervention In line with the NHSI work, we looked at term babies who were hypothermic. Gestational age is variably calculated and documented in Zambia, so we used a birth weight of2.5kg as a surrogate identifier of term.

After the intervention programme, there was a reduction in the hypothermic term babies admitted to the unit.

Primary reason for admission in all the hypothermic babies of the pre intervention study period were in line with the ATAIN work in the UK.

Conclusion: A simple educational programme has been shown to reduce the number of term admissions by reducing the number of hypothermic babies.

Ongoing work includes maternal education and information regarding simple measures to alleviate hypothermia.