Lung issues?

[mommyofanna,isaac]

My 28weeker, now 9 months old, has had horrible wheezing and coughing for 6 days now. The doc has put him on steroids and he has the albuterol breathing treatments every 3-4 hrs. We went to the docs yesterday and they had us admitted to the hospital. They want to do a blood test on him to test for cystic fibrosis and some other lung diseases. Should I be worried? He doesnt have n e other symptoms for cystic fibrosis besides the coughing and wheezing-- he is growing just fine and doesn't have any stomach issues. I am really concerned about this. Any one have anything similar happen? what did you do?

[SativaStarr]

Cystic Fibrosis is generally part of the newborn screens so the chance that they missed this is extremely rare. They want to do a sweat test for CF on DS2 (former 32 weeker, now 17 mo) as well just to rule it out since he has had growth/weight issues as well as ongoing respiratory issues.. but they also said in this day and age its also never missed as a newborn.

Honestly, I think there is a much higher chance that its just normal lung issues that preemies are prone to. I know DS2 also has Chronic Lung Disease and will most likely get the asthma diagnosis when he turns 2.

He also gets put on steroids just about EVERY time he gets even the simplest cold and has had 15 respiratory related hospital admissions thus far. He's on albuterol (inhaler now) and just recently went from Flovent (inhaler) as a controller to Advair (inhaler) since the Flovent wasn't controlling things and he was requiring albuterol daily.

[justmama]

if you'll take a quick glance the asthma thread here, you'll see that a lot of preemies end up having some lung "issues" at some point in their lives. like the previous poster said, cystic fibrosis is part of the newborn panel done at the hospital so it's a safe bet your doc is just being extra careful. your baby is still really young and those airways are super tiny, especially in micropreemies so it's probably just that your baby is having a hard time clearing mucus and recovering from an illness. Even the tiniest bit of mucus can clog up baby airways really fast. my daughter was a 33weeker and she had no respiratory issues at birth but was diagnosed with asthma. every single time a cold comes her way it turns into pneumonia or bronchial infections. every time. amd it takes her a long time to shake it.