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 loss in humans. No significant difference was found between the two methods for determining conductive heat loss (p> 0.05). Instantaneous conductive heat loss was found to be as high as 53% of total energy expenditure when infants were initially placed on a room temperature mattress, with an exponential decline to steady state after 10 min. Conductive 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 rights reserved.