The horrors of IVs and littles.

Most mom's who have had their littlest, littles have an IV or extensive blood draw usually also has a traumatic story to share along with it. We are no exception. When my son was one and a half he got two viruses back to back at the tail end of the cold and flu season. The first virus has him running a fever for about a week, but nothing too high or dramatic. This of course resulted in decrease appetite, lethargy and a resistance to fluids... but we tried our best. By day 7, our Little Bear had contracted his second virus and started spiking high fevers of 104 and greater.

Our fourth trip to the doctor's resulted in a direct hospital admit for suspected dehydration.

Dehydration means IV.

April 2017

Up to this point, my son had had two blood draws for food allergy testing in his life. They of course hurt him, but he didn't even cry during the draws. They were short and performed on healthy hydrated veins. This IV stick however, was a different story. We had a cranky-sick baby, in a new hospital environment, with nurses dressed for quarantine, trying to stick an IV line into little dehydrated veins. It was a disaster.

The nurses began by wrapping (swaddling) my son in a blanket and allowing me to stand at his head to comfort him and control his upper body movements. Meanwhile, the two pediatric nurses attempted for the longest 45 minutes of me, my partners and I'm confident my son's life to get an IV line in.  Mommy mode had kicked in so I was calm and comforting but the moment he was returned back to the room with his other parent, I had to go for a walk so I could break down and cry. It was horrible. He was so scared and mad and miserable.

Two days later his IV fell out... I was not doing that to him again. I remember hesitating to even tell the nurse the IV fell out. But, at this point I knew my son had spiked some even higher fevers and it just needed to be done.

I went to the head nurse and stated that I wanted the most specialized and experienced nurse to perform the IV line. The head nurse with no hesitation stated, no problem. She called down to the NICU and a NICU nurse came up to perform the line.

This time was different from the start. The NICU nurse came with a vein viewer light. She shined it on my sons arm, which illuminated a clear view of his veins. Within a few tearless seconds his line was in and we were back in our room.

Photo source: https://www.christiemed.com/PublishingImages/Pages/pediatrics/veinviewer-tertiary20.png

My point in this story was not to disparage those hard working pediatric nurses who got my son's first line in. They had many challenges and throughout the process stayed calm and professional. My point is THERE IS A VEIN VIEWER! Ask for it. Require a NICU nurse who is accustomed to smaller and harder veins to put in your child's line. It was a completely different experience. I would love to save a mom and baby from having a scary, emotional IV story.

My son of course made a full recover and was up playing and home in no time. I caught the same virus upon our return home, but it was so minor on my adult body compared to my son's baby body. My ideal wish is that your little does not get sick enough to require an IV, but with cold and flu season here again, I wanted to pass on this info and hopefully save someone some heartache.