The efficacy of active warming in preventing unplanned hypothermia during perioperative period in pediatric surgery patients in a tertiary care center

Aim: To investigate the effects of using the active warming method on children with hypothermia in the perioperative period and examining the effects of hypothermia on awakening time, pain, shivering and hospital stay. Methods: This study included patients 18 years of age and younger who underwent surgery in the pediatric surgery department of a tertiary hospital. The active warming group consisted of 28 patients and the control group consisted of 29 patients. The first group of patients was actively warmed during the surgery and the second group was treated as the control group and did not actively receive any warming therapy. Preoperative body temperatures of the cases were measured. In addition, body temperatures were recorded every 15 minutes in the intraoperative and postoperative periods. Results: There was no statistically significant difference in preoperative body temperature between the control group and the active warming group. When body temperature were examined in the intraoperative period, there was no significant difference between the groups at the first 15 minutes of operation; however, the mean of the body temperature in active warming group was significantly higher than the control group at the 30th , 45th , and 60th minutes of operation. It was determined that patients in the control group had a longer stay in the hospital and the amount of time for waking at the end of the anesthesia was shorter in the active heating group than in the control group. Conclusions: The results of our study suggest that active heating with a carbon fiber resistant system is an effective method to prevent unplanned hypothermia in operated children.