CONTRIBUTION OF CONDUCTION TO TOTAL INFANT ENERGY-EXPENDITURE

Two methods were compared to determine the conductive heat loss in ten healthy newborn infants; (1) direct use of heat flux meters, and (2) indirect calculation by infrared thermographic calorimetry (ITC). ITC uses an infrared camera and heat theory equations to determine heat lo ss in humans. No significant difference was found between the two meth ods for determining conductive heat loss (p> 0.05). Instantaneous cond uctive heat loss was found to be as high as 53% of total energy expend iture when infants were initially placed on a room temperature mattres s, with an exponential decline to steady state after 10 min. Conductiv e heat loss at steady state was 1.96 +/- 0.45 kcal/h, or 6.0 +/- 2.05% of total energy expenditure. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All right s reserved.