Active normothermia treatment for perioperative temperature management during bedside surgery in the NICU, a case report

Infants in the NICU setting often require emergent bedside surgical procedures, during which, they are at high risk for developing hypothermia. Reasons for hypothermia in infants include poor temperature regulation, decreased fat stores to maintain temperature, increased insensible losses. Neonatal hypothermia is associated with an increased risk of sepsis, cardiorespiratory failure (pulmonary hypertension), hypoglycemia and death. In this case series, we describe the novel use of servo-controlled water blanket system as a method to actively maintain normothermia during three surgical cases. Although water blanket systems are frequently used in the neonatal ICU to provide active hypothermia treatment, to our knowledge there have been no prior reports of this system being deployed in normal and low-birthweight infants in the perioperative period.