Test: Cord Blood Gases

Let's see how much you guys have been paying attention to my blog. What follows are two cord blood gases and a few questions:

A.

• pH 7.36
• CO2 42.8
• PO2 33.7
• SO2 80.5
• FO2Hb 75.7
• HCO3 23.8
• BE -1.1

B.

• pH 7.27
• CO2 58.8
• PO2 12.3
• SO2 19.5
• FO2Hb 18.8
• HCO3 26.3
• BE -1.3

Questions

1. Which one of the above is arterial and which one is venous?

2. Are these results normal or critical?

3. What did you use for the basis to answer question #2? Or, how do you determine if a cord blood gas is critical?

4. If you can only draw venous or arterial from the cord, which would you rather have: venous or arterial?

5. Do cord blood gases have clinical significance?

I will provide the answers at 1900 tonight, or you can find them in this post.  Share your answers in the comments below, if you're confident.  And so you know, I asked these same questions to all my coworkers, and not one of them got the right answers.