7.26.2009

july 25- another day in the nicu

with her mady beanie baby...mady's our dog. i can't wait until she can play with the real thing. those will be CUTE pictures!

3bls 7oz tonight. what a heifer! up 70grams!
really though, she pooped SO much that she'll probably be down by 50grams tomorrow. 4 times! full diapers! it was really quite comical, every time we put a new diaper on... we needed another.
she has been on only hindmilk for a few days now though... so that, with the prolacta should help. but probably not 70grams in a few days help.

they're a little worried about her weight gain. she's only been gaining about 10-20 grams a day since she was born. they want 15-30 grams daily. as i've said before though, thadd and i were both small babies. (he was only 5lbs or so when he was born full term.) genetics plays a part in it, so i don't think she's really having problems... she's just smallish. :) her primary nurse told me today that that could also be another reason why they dropped her sprint times by so much... that they're just trying to conserve her energy so she'll gain weight.

they upped her feeds to 30ml/3hours over 1 hour. she tolerated the feeds fine.. just having about 1ml residuals, which is what she had before on 28ml. (residuals are what they pull back out of her stomach, through the feeding tube, after the feed is over. what the baby was unable to digest. as long as it's a small amount, they just put it back in their stomach and let them have more time to do it. residuals also have a lot of important stomach acids in them. if she had a lot of residuals it would mean she was having a problem with digestion or something.)

her primary also said that they'd probably pick back up on the sprints on monday. she also seemed a little concerned about her need for more oxygen lately... but her labs are tomorrow night. so we'll see how they turn out. hopefully she's just being finicky the past few days.
she hung out around the 40s today... and was in the low 40s on cpap this evening, and on about 55% during her sprint while we were there holding her. when we put her in the bed she started doing MUCH better. (little turkey!) so hopefully the nurse was able to ween her down before her sprint was over.
check out that noggin'! that's what you call a "toaster head". (or the mad scientist gigantic brain head.) it's because preemies, particularly micro-preemies do better on their bellies. this means they're laying with their heads turned to one side or the other 24/7... it makes them have tall skinny heads. they'll usually outrgrow it between 1 and 2 years. (we hope!) but hey, she's a girl, she can wear cutesy little hats! :)

1 comment:

Joy said...

We gave Robbie only hindmilk for a while, too.. it worked wonders.
I wasn't eating the healthiest and I'm sure that contributed. My BM looked like water. (I was having major gallbladder issues on top of all the stress. Then they thought he was allergic to milk, so I cut all dairy. I just couldn't eat anything. I was living on fake mashed potatoes from the hospital cafeteria.)

Anyway, you said her crit was low, right? That could be contributing to the increased oxygen needs.. Hopefully her bone marrow kicks in soon and she won't need another transfusion, but even she does get another, I'm betting her o2 needs go down a bit.