Resting Oxygen Consumption of Premature Infants Covered with a Plastic Thermal Blanket

¹ Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California

Premature infants in single-wall incubators covered with "thermal blankets" made of plastic packing material have large reductions in insensible water loss (IWL) conipared with naked infants. We postulated that such reductions in evaporative heat loss would not result in decreases in caloric expenditure if body temperature were maintained by a servocontrolled heat source. Using an open-circuit technique, we measured oxygen consumption (Vo₂), carbon dioxide production (Vco₂), heart rate (HR), respiratory rate (RR), and abdominal skin ( T_abd), cheek, thigh, rectal, incubator air, wall, and room air temperatures in ten infants less than 37 weeks gestational age and from 2 to 24 days of age both naked and covered with a plastic thermal blanket. T_abd temperature was maintained between 36.2 and 36.8 C and rectal temperature between 36.8 and 37.2 C in each environment by manual or automatic servocontrol. A "resting state" was defined by using a combination of subjective and objective criteria. The mean values of Vo₂ during the "resting state" were 7.31 and 7.59 cc/kg of body weight per minute for naked and covered infants, respectively. There were no significant differences between mean values of VCO₂, respiratory quotient, HR, RR, abdominal, cheek, thigh, or rectal temperatures in the two environments. Operant temperatures averaged 0.5 C lower when the infants were covered. These data support the hypothesis that decreases in insensible water loss do not necessarily imply reductions in caloric requirements in infants where T_abd is niaintained by servocontrol.