Air Bubbles - Everything You Need To Be Aware About During Safety IV Cannula Insertion

Now when it comes to the air bubbles, there always comes a question in mind. How can you prevent them? How do you actually get rid of them? And do you have to get worried about it in the first place.

Generally in most of the cases it is believed that the entire process of safety IV cannula requires 50 ml of air resulting in the significant risk of life, where as there have been studies in which 20mls or less air has been infused in the hands of the patient resulting in the fatal air embolism.

So now you can assure that it requires a huge volume of air in order to produce a life threatening risk of the air embolism. And much more to whatever we see with those small air bubbles that are appearing in the IV line. Remember every small amount of air that are known as the micro bubbles, do have the potential to migrate through the chambers of the heart and the pulmonary vascular bed. But this has never been a problem as this is something that is steadily absorbed, and in case they are large they would then merge into larger emboli presenting a huge risk. 

As a nurse never ever be over alarmed with the small air bubbles. Instead look out for attempts that will help in minimise the risk of their forming. Have a look at some of the attempts given below. 

1. Do make sure that you have a primed drip chamber: Though this sounds to be obvious, failure to prime the drip chamber will help in increasing the likelihood of the air bubbles making their way to the Safety IV Cannula insertion process. 

2. Make sure to close the clamp before closing the bags: It is possible for the air to end enter the line during the regular bag changes, followed by being flushed into the circulation process with the new bag. So have the clamp closed even if you would be changing it immediately. 

3. Make sure that you do not add air into the bag while injecting addictive’s:

Before you begin with the entire process do make sure that there is no extra air being injected into the bag. Doing this would lead to an extra atmospheric pressure within the bag, allowing the air to continue to infuse once the patients bag goes empty. 

4. Do not place the bag on the bed: There is no surer way of getting the air in your IV line, than to follow the practice of having the bag placed next to the patient on the bed. Say for example transferring it from one bed to the other. So do make sure that the bag has been hanging vertically. 

5. Jiggling bag will continue to blow bubbles: Bags that have been jiggling around on their IV poles, say for example during bed transport along uneven floors will produce more and more bubbles. 

6. Keeping the bag snug: The last but not the least do make sure that the bag is not loose on the patients Cannula. Most of them even today witnessed large amounts of air being entered from a loose bung and drawn into the syringe while taking the blood samples. 

To conclude there are many different ways that you can use to remove the air bubbles. And all of them are annoying. Do not hesitate to attempt to just purge or bubble the detector resuming the infusion.