Both David and Mary Louise are officially "eating" now! David is on 3mls of breast milk every 3 hours. Mary Louise is at 18mls every 3 hours and they are starting to add the human milk fortifier today (it is a powder mixed with the breast milk that contains extra calories and protein to compensate for issues with prematurity). She is not gaining enough weight so they are hoping the fortifier helps to remedy that. She is supposed to gain about 3/4th of and ounce per day currently and 1 ounce per day eventually - she is nowhere near that. A recent x-ray of her intestines showed that there is some looping that appears abnormal. She is stooling regularly and her belly is soft so they don't think it is the dreaded necrotising enterocolitis but they re-took the x-ray today to double check. Oh please let this be a non-issue!! The doctor wants her to put on weight and grow a bit more prior to trying to discontinue her vent so he may try again next week. This week, she needs to eat, grow, eat and grow, gain strength and get ready to take over the breathing once and for all! Her rate was very low today and they were trying to keep her oxygen as low as possible - it was at a medium rate. Other than that, she is doing well and looking more and more alert each day.
David is doing well overall. He has his favorite positions where he breathes really well and has low oxygen settings and not so favorite ones where he desats the whole time. He had another dirty diaper today and with real feeding started, there are (hopefully) many more to come. His urine output was still down and they were giving him normal saline boluses to try to help. His blood pressure also dropped slightly this morning. Again, the blouses should help with that. He seemed a bit calmer this morning and hopefully stays on that trend (though he continues to get overstimulated with even the tiniest disturbance). His chest x-rays look better though according to the doctor, they aren't "great". He has definite signs of chronic lung disease but his pneumonia seems to be clearing (that is, assuming it was pneumonia of which they still aren't sure). His sputum and blood cultures are still negative.
So, overall, a good day. Brent went back this evening and said they were still doing well but the nurse had not changed David's diaper yet - I do hope it was soaked!
Love,
Heather
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Sounds good. My sisters little girl had to have a fortifier mixed with her breast milk and it definitely helped her gain weight and mature, she was a little premature. Hopefully it will do the same for Mary Louise. We will pray that her little intestines are fine and she can go on pooping happily.
ReplyDeleteGo David! Glad to hear he is finally getting some of that nutritious breast milk his mom has been working so hard to produce. I hope he tolerates it well and his lungs continue to improve.