Question

Immediately after birth, a newborn is dried before being placed in skin-to-skin contact with the mother. What type of heat loss does this intervention prevent?

1. Radiation

2. Convection

3. Conduction

4. Evaporation (Nugent 326)
Nugent, Patricia M. Mosby's Review Questions for the NCLEX-RN® Examination, 7th Edition. Mosby, 2011. VitalBook file.

Answer 1

Drying a newborn after birth helps to prevent heat loss through evaporation, protecting the baby from a rapid drop in body temperature.

Step-by-step explanation:

Immediately after birth, drying the newborn before placing them in skin-to-skin contact with the mother helps prevent evaporation heat loss. When a newborn is wet from amniotic fluid and exposure to the cooler environment, the process of evaporation can cause a significant drop in their body temperature as the moisture on their skin evaporates. Newborns are particularly susceptible to heat loss due to their high surface area to volume ratio, underdeveloped musculature, and lack of insulating subcutaneous fat which makes maintaining body temperature challenging. Drying off the newborn minimizes this risk by removing the moisture that would otherwise evaporate and cool the skin.