Nobody would have thought that, but for us students, finding veins even on adults, might be a matter of luck sometimes ;-) Now, just imagine placing long lines on veins of a 600gram baby? During my attachment I was fascinated how the doctors managed to do this fabulously.
There are some tricks to find the baby’s vessels. One of them is using a special LED light, which helps finding those little veins and arteries before the puncture. On the picture you can see two different lights, the orange and red one, differing regarding the depth of penetration.
A long line is a fine plastic tube 10 – 15 cm long that is threaded into one of the baby’s small veins in the arm or leg until it reaches a point where the veins are much larger, usually just outside the heart.
