I don’t understand this problem. Please help me.

Question

A hospital has available Actinomicina for children 2 mg/kg. A nurse must give this medication to an infant that weighs 16 lbs. and 10 oz. How many mgs must the nurse give (single dose)? Round to the nearest hundredth. (1 lb = 0.45 kg) and (1 lb = 16 oz)

Answer 1

The first thing you must do is convert the infant's weight from pounds/ounces to kilograms. To do this you first combine the pounds and ounces together, giving the weight in pounds and tenths of a pound, in decimal format. So, you have 10 ounces, a pound is 16 ounces, so you have 10/16th of a pound. Use your calculator to do this conversion... 10/16 = .625 ... this makes the infant's weight in pounds, 16.625 .

Next, convert the pounds to kilograms (kg) using the conversion you are given. To do this, multiply the infant's weight by .45 ... 16.625 times .45 = 7.48125 kilograms. Now you have what you need to calculate the milligrams of the medication for the infant.

Multiply the number of mg per kg times the number of kg the infant weighs:

2 mg/kg times 7.48 kg = 14.9625 mg which is 14.96 mg (rounded to the nearest 100th).

Do all the math yourself following the method I've used... it's 2 AM here so I may have read a number incorrectly!

--Louise