Minimal oxygen consumption in infants cared for under overhead radiant warmers compared with conventional incubators

Infants under radiant warmers have large increases in insensible water loss compared with infants in single wall incubators. To answer the question of whether or not a minimal rate of oxygen consumption could be achieved under overhead radiant warmers, we measured oxygen consumption, carbon dioxide production, and abdominal skin, cheek, rectal, thigh, and environmental temperature in ten healthy newborn infants in incubators and radiant warmers, using each infant as his/her own control. The minimal VO2 ranged from 4.41 to 8.87 and from 4.35 to 9.06 cc/kg/minute in the incubator and radiant warmer, respectively. The differences were clearly not significant (paired Student t-test, P greater than 0.60). There were no significant differences between the respiratory quotients, VCO2, or abdominal skin, check, rectal or environmental temperatures. These data support the hypothesis that a thermoneutral environment can be provided with a radiant warmer and imply that large increases in insensible water loss can occur without affecting minimal oxygen consumption.