10s
Ten Seconds to the Dose
Neonatal medication safety

Ten Seconds to the Dose

A critical reference for neonatal intensive care nursing.

Written from the NICU bedside by Claudia Retamales V., RN

20 sections
400+ pages
200+ cited sources
Join the waitlist For training programs
A sixty-second lesson

Two infants. The same weight.

1.8 kg
Born at 26 weeks
Now 34 weeks postmenstrual age
1.8 kg
Born at 34 weeks
One day old
Same weight, same milligrams per kilogram. They do not clear a renally eliminated drug at the same rate.

Rhodin et al. (2009), Pediatric Nephrology

The principle

The clock is not the birthday.

Maturity, not weight and not the calendar, governs how a newborn handles a drug. Two charts can read identically while the kidneys behind them are weeks apart.

PMA = gestational age at birth + postnatal age
The method

Ten seconds. Read it back.

Before the dose reaches the baby, four things get said out loud, every time:

the dose
the interval
the volume
the syringe

“Ten seconds to read it back is never time you lose.”

The book

Watch the two-minute introduction.

The dosing mathWeight-based calculation the way it actually fails on the unit, and the habits that catch it.
The maturity clockPostmenstrual age as the organizing idea behind clearance, intervals and risk.
The six drugsThe medications behind most NICU medication harm, one by one.
The ten-second read-backA bedside method that costs ten seconds and catches the error before it reaches the baby.
From the book, drawn for print
Corrected versus chronological age, book figure

Corrected vs. chronological age

A factor of ten, book figure

A factor of ten

The pharmacokinetic levers, book figure

The pharmacokinetic levers

Coming fall 2026

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For training centers & hospitals

The full-length modules, as licensed curriculum.

Video classes built from the book to accreditation standards, for nursing programs, hospital education departments and NCLEX preparation. Ask to see the complete 11-minute class.

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