Hi Jennifer,

The blood spot testing if anything is far more accurate than the full blood draws from my understanding.  The reason why is that it is a smaller more concentrate volume of blood and it is dried when it is on the filter paper testing.  They can then rehydrate it and do the relevant tests in the lab.  The other blood draws are far more likely to be exposed to factors which could change the accuracy of the result in my opinion, i.e. temperature in transportation and damage etc.  So strictly speaking what you were told is not true.  Otherwise how would they ever pick up the newborns with the filter paper testing???  However, if they do not have the filter papers to hand, they cannot do those tests at all.  They have no other choice  but to do a full blood draw in the usual way--which in my opinion is for the best because often when a child is in that situation, they are gonna need an IV set up at some point anyway or IV drugs.  So they need IV anyhow.  Setting one up and then taking bloods from that instead is better really.  The last time Ash was ill they did that straight away but to our disappointment they did not use it and then when we had to go back the following day, they did not set one up at all.  His illness was extended.  Now this is a 10 yr old that can communicate how ill he feels so a small child is not really coherent enough to do that so all in all I think that the IV is the best.  I don’t know where they took your childs bloods from but this is always the way they dealt when Ashley was a baby and it seemed much less worrying when it was done like that.  If a child has vomited back a dose within an hour twice in a row then you need to look at IV being set up.  If you leave this too long the veins can collapse and be impossible or more difficult to find from experience and they end up doing more digging around much to the discomfort of the babies.   Whilst they could give an IM injection, basically by that time a child is also needing fluids to help them recover from any dehydration that has been caused by the vomiting.  I think that is how things should be really especially with babies.