When using skin servo-controlled incubator temperature, the use of body temperature as a signal of disease must be replaced by monitoring which parameter?

• A. Infant heart rate
• B. Infant core temperature
• C. Incubator temperature
• D. Skin moisture

Answer: (C)

In a skin servo-controlled incubator, the feedback loop uses the infant’s skin temperature to set the incubator’s air temperature. Because the system actively maintains the skin temperature, the infant’s body temperature may not reliably reflect illness or fever. This means you should watch the environment the infant is in—the incubator temperature itself—and look for abnormal trends or instability in that parameter as a signal of possible disease or deterioration. Changes in incubator temperature (how often it must adjust and to what level) can reveal systemic issues even when skin temperature remains within range.

Other signs like heart rate or skin moisture are important clinically, but they don’t replace body temperature as the signal within this particular setup; the parameter that serves as the disease signal in this context is the incubator temperature.