ABSTRACT
Objective To evaluate the effects of exothermic mattress to prevent hypothermia in preterm infants. Methods SinoMed, Wanfang data, CNKI, VIP, PubMed, Embase and Web of Science were searched to collect relevant randomized or quasi randomized controlled trials on application of exothermic mattress to prevent hypothermia in preterm infants from database establishment to April 2017. A Meta-analysis was conducted by using RevMan 5.3 software. Results Four studies were included. The Meta-analysis showed that application of exothermic mattress significantly improved admission temperature in neonatal intensive care unit for infants less than 28 weeks (random effect model , weighted mean difference was 0.64, 95％CI 0.04-1.24, P=0.04) and increased risk of hyperthermia (fixed effect model, odds ratio was 3.18, 95％ CI 1.30- 7.77, P=0.01). Conclusions Exothermic mattress is efficacious in improving admission temperature for preterm infants.