Full-term and NICU

[farmlife]

Just wondering who else is out there?

Looking for info about long term effects from meconium aspiration, gbs and all that. Seems like he had more colds than ds1 ever did, but they all cleared up pretty quickly.

I have lots to say but every time i come to do it, I stop myself. So very traumatic. Actually, I was reading my threads that were moved to this forum and that took me back. I was in such shock, such absolute shock. Anyway, I have lots of healing to do and working on finding a way to do it. EMDR was suggested to me by a therapist I met with briefly. Anyone try it for birth issues?

[chioma]

not sure if our experience relates to yours at all, but will give you a quick overview of our trauma.
I was diagnosed with GBS at 36 weeks. I told the midwife then that I was refusing antibiotics at delivery, as I had received them with the child before and we battled thrush for months after. The midwife went on to tell me about how my child could become very sick, die, etc.....well I had done all the research and told her I was making an informed choice. I started herbal treatments immediately.
I got the the hospital about 40 minutes before I delivered. They were not happy that they couldn't get an iv in me, let alone try to push the antibiotics. Dd weighed 9lbs. Shortly after the delivery the CNM asked me if I wanted dd to have her first Hep B shot. I told her no, we would get it at the first doc appointment. She came back into the room a couple minutes later to tell me that since I had not been tested for Hep B during prenatal(I had gone to the lab and had all blood drawn at 9 weeks...plus how did they NOT notice the entire time I was going for prenatals???) they HAD to give not only the immunization but also immunoglobin to protect her in case I was infected. The next evening they came to tell me her white blood count was high and since she was at risk for GBS they had to start her on an antibiotic. She was active, alert and nursing like a champ from the moment I put her to the breast. An old time pediatrician came in the next morning and said he knows sick babies and mine was not sick, if he was on the next morning he would discharge her. I was discharged at 6:30 the next morning, I was asking what about my baby, the doc yesterday said I wouldn't be discharged until they figured out what to do about her. They told me they had nothing to do with peds, I was being discharged right then. I sat in the room that whole morning waiting for a pediatrician to come see dd. I finally had to ring the nurse's station and ask if someone was coming in. A doc finally showed up and said they had to keep her, even though her 24 hour blood culture came back clean, they wanted to wait on the 48 hour culture. I told him I wanted to take her out AMA, at which point he took a card out of his pocket and gave to me, telling me I needed to think about what I was doing and call him after I had given it some thought. Low and behold, on his card, printed under his name, was the title Child Abuse Specialist.
I was left alone in the room until midafternoon, except for a nurse who came in to give my dd a shot of the antibiotic. She jammed the needle into her leg so hard that blood started to come out around the needle, then she emptied the syringe so fast that the meds came gushing out around the needle, then when she pulled the needle out blood was spurting out of dd's leg. I started crying and asked her why that happened, it didn't any of the other times she was injected. Her reply was "Well, MOST mothers diagnosed with GBS come in and get antibiotics during labor so we don't have to go through all of this."
I put in a call to the pediatrician right after that, got no response. Finally when the nurses changed their shift a nurse who had been on during my delivery came in to see me, asking me why I was still there. I told her about the nurse from earlier, she had a supervisor come in to take a report. They then convinced me to let them put dd in the NICU for the night, even though my husband and I swore to them that we would bring her back for more antibiotics if need be. They admitted her to the NICU at 6 pm, came in late that night to tell us that the 48 hour culture was negative, then discharged her by 11 am. I feel like they held my baby hostage and gave her unneccessary meds.
Oh, I almost forgot to tell about how the morning after I delivered a doc came in and insisted that I go on antidepressants because I had postpartum depression after my 2nd baby...my first husband had taken off while I was pregant, I was living with my mom....terrible stress and strain at the time. I told this doc I was ok, I wasn't going to consider meds unless I started feeling symptoms. He told me he didn't want to see me drive my kids into a lake because I refused meds. I reported him to a social worker before I left the hospital.
Now I am preg with twins, due in about 9 weeks and my Dh thinks I am crazy for not wanting to deliver in a hospital.
Sorry, I have rambled enough

Chioma

[Danielle283]

My dd was born full term with GBS. I tested neg, but just a couple minutes after she was born, the problems started and she was whisked away. She spent 2 weeks in the NICU and then 2 weeks in the level 2.

There doesnt seem to be any long term effects, she was being seen by a developmental person for a while but she was actually ahead every screening so we stopped going.

[farmlife]

:hug momma. wow.

the stuff about vax and antibiotic hit so close to home for me. the ped on call was so judgemental and pretty much told me she was being nice in telling me about procedures, i had no voice. wtf????

my baby was very sick. he couldn't breathe. when they gave him to me right after delivery, after suctioning him and taking the time to diaper him WTF I started to take his diaper off and hold him close to nurse when they stopped me told me he could have nothing in his stomach and then i pushed him towards them and said help him. he was struggling so hard for breath.

i will be back in and out of this forum. it really tears me up but i am so, so very grateful it is here.

[bri276]

dd was 41 wks and in the nicu for 5 days. she has a chromosome disoder and was very lethargic/sleepy and not eating well at all. our experience was definitely easier than a lot of people in many ways but scary in other ways too, especially since our medical issues didn't end with the nicu but continue to become more complicated all the time.

[munkeesmama]

My son was a full term birth at 39 weeks after being seen by the perinatologist for 11 weeks for IUGR. My son was born with sever dysmoprhic features and was noth breathing. They thought he had a chromosome issue and told me he wouldn't make it through the night. His face was bruised and his nose had a scab. The next morning he was fine, so his nicu stay was very short. However he still has a scar from birth and now we are dealing with autism issues which the psychologist feels might be birth related.

[LynnE73]

I literally *just* posted about EMDR therapy in another thread on this forum. Really, it works. Find a provider and just do it. (I had a HBAC transfer to NICU.) I have a friend with a 2.5 year old with GBS. He does have a lot of allergies but his Mom does too so she is not certain it was from the GBS. (No help there, sorry.)

[BundleFishMama]

My little Andrew was full-term (actually post-term, he was 41 weeks) born on June 25. He spent 10 days in the NICU being treated for GBS. I knew I was GBS+ and did receive antibiotics, but they didn't have time to get the whole dose in - things were going slowly so my midwife thought there was plenty of time, but then my labor sped up suddenly and he was here before we knew it!

They never could tell for sure if it was GBS but the docs said they're fairly certain. The blood cultures came back negative but they think that's because I did receive some antibiotics during labor. The day after Andrew was born we were supposed to go home, but they came in and said he had evidence of a severe infection - 4 indicators in his blood test (white blood cell count, sedementation rate, c-reactive proteins, and something else I can't remember) - by the next morning these indicators had doubled despite the meds being started, and I was freaking out that it might be a drug resistant-strain of GBS (I had read that GBS is fatal for 5 to 15% of newborns).

Thank God, the third day the medications started working, and he was fine after that. Fortunately Andrew was diagnosed so early that he never showed any symptoms. And I got to stay in the parents' room outside the NICU so I never left the hospital once in those 10 days - I was able to be there 24/7 so he never had a single bottle or pacifier. It was still awful though - my husband was overseas at a conference (he missed the birth but came back once all this happened), I missed my other kids terribly, and I was so worried. I hated seeing them do spinal taps on him and having to keep reinserting the IV and all....although I knew they had to. And then I felt guilty leaving, although I was thrilled to be going home of course, because so many of the friends I'd made had babies who would be there for months more.

So I just stumbled upon this thread and thought I'd tell my story and see if there's anyone out there with a similar experience? I feel a little silly being so upset over what happened, given that we were probably the least severe case in the NICU that week, but still I was so scared and I am still pretty scared that there might be some lasting effect from this, even though they tell me there won't be. Also I worry that this could happen again with future babies. I feel kind of ridiculous because he is 100% fine now and so many babies there were much worse off, but I still feel a little traumatized by everything we went through.

[americastamps]

My son was born at just about two weeks overdue--I went into labor on a saturday had him sunday (they were planning to induce me monday)
He ended up with a bad case of meconium aspiration and spent 3 weeks in a Japanese NICU. I have been trying to figure out what GBS stands for, but I am clueless. Is it a term related to the meconium aspiration?
I know very little about my son's initial illness/NICU time because I don't speak Japanese and there were almost no translation services. All I know is he was very sick, born by c-section, was blue (they didn't know ahead he was struggling that much-it wasn't even an emergency c-section, but it was after about 17 or 18 hours of labor, 2 1/2 hours pushing)
about 2 hours after birth he was moved to NICU off the military base and out into the Japanese hospital.
I am still really really sad about it all even though my son is fine now (thank God!) It was traumatic for me because I didn't understand anything that was going on and they only let us visit him for ONE HOUR a day. When I think about that now I just get SO mad. I don't know how I made it through those 3 weeks really. I know I should feel lucky that he got better and made it through but I just can't help hanging on the sad feelings of that situation.

I'm due in November with another little boy and I would love to work through these feelings of sadness/frustration and fear or another hard birth so that I can have the best birth experience possible.

If anyone has some ideas for me or any info at all to share about effects of meconium aspiration I'd love to hear.
My son does have some mild allergies and I do wonder if that is related to his rocky start at all or all the antibiotics/drugs they must have given him in the NICU.
Erica

[eilonwy]

My son was born at 37w3d after a very, very long labor; he went to NICU for meconium aspiration and was in for a week. I was stunned and horrified by the whole experience. :gloomy:

He's 3.5 years old now, and in brilliant health. :D For the first six months of his life, he had retractions pretty much all the time; he still has retractions when he's sick, but that isn't terribly often. I credit child-led weaning with his health and well-being. :thumb

Bella was born at 36w6d; I'm told that this makes her preterm if you wanna get technical about it, but the reality is that she was damn near cooked. She went to NICU because she didn't breathe immediately after birth. I pretty much went into shock, and I'm still upset about the whole experience even though she was only there for hours (not weeks). :guilty

[happyblessedmama]

My 3rd child had meconium aspiration and developed PPHN. She was born at 41+2 and had a 12 day NICU stay. They put her on a 7 day course of gentamycin and ampicillin in case she turned out to have pneumonia (she didn't) vs. MAS, because she had bilateral infiltrates on the CXR and they can't diagnose a problem just by looking at a CXR.

As far as allergies, the kiddo has no food allergies, but is now allergic to penicillin. I have no doubt it's because of her early, heavy exposure to the antibiotics and a couple of (necessary) treatments with amox during her 1st year. None of my other kids have allergies.

edited to change the word 'drugs' to antibiotics since the words have different connotations - I do NOT do drugs! ;)

[BelgianSheepDog]

Thanks for starting this thread. My daughter's physical problems turned out to be fairly brief--she had a VSD (congenital heart defect, basically a tiny hole in her heart) and at our 6 week followup with the pediatric cardiologist a couple days ago he declared it was all gone. But the emotional healing for all of us will take a lot longer, I suspect. Even though we lucked out in a lot of ways--she wasn't *that* sick to start with, we had great doctors and mostly great nurses, we had our homebirth midwives with us as support people, we got to stay in the hospital with her and I breastfed her on demand--it was scary and traumatic and not at all what we had wanted for the first week of her life.

I don't have time to tell the whole story or say a lot more right now, but thanks for starting this place where we can give each other support and empathy.

[BlueNote]

My last two children were full term and NICU. Probably due to being c-section babes ( :( ). My twins were also in NICU, but born somewhat prematurely (36 weeks). They remained for six weeks. I learned a lot and was horrified and devastated.

With my last child, it was awful, but, I was an old hand at this by then.

My fourth child (not my last), was only in for a six hour observation, so I didn't have to deal with it.

[farmlife]

I've been offline for a few days and feel am so grateful to everyone for sharing their story here.

i will be in and out of this, as I said due to the rawness. i thought i was ready for more today but i think i need to check out for now.

i am so glad this forum is here.

[eclipse]

My 5 yo was a fullterm NICU baby. Thankfully, his stay was very brief. He had a lot of decels during labor and breathing problems that led to an 36 hour or so stay in the NICU. I was also not "allowed" to breastfeed right away, and the nurses kept sneaking him bottles. Thankfully, he was out in time to go home with me.

[BundleFishMama]

I have been trying to figure out what GBS stands for, but I am clueless. Is it a term related to the meconium aspiration?

No, although my son had meconium too but they deep-suctioned him right after birth and he never had any breathing problems from it - GBS is totally unrelated, it stands for Group Beta Streptococcus, a bacterium that 10-30% of the population carry in their bodies naturally, and it doesn't cause people (under normal circumstances) to become ill, but when a pg woman has it the baby can get it in the birth canal and become very sick. I don't know about Japan, but in the U.S. most pg women are routinely tested to see if they are colonized with GBS around week 36 and given prophylactic antibiotics during labor if they are. That prevents the vast majority of - but not all - babies from getting sick from GBS exposure.

[americastamps]

I have heard of Strep but never heard of the acronym GBS. Thanks for clearing that for me. I was feeling pretty silly as I didn't know quite what you were referring too. Thanks for sharing your story.

Erica

No, although my son had meconium too but they deep-suctioned him right after birth and he never had any breathing problems from it - GBS is totally unrelated, it stands for Group Beta Streptococcus, a bacterium that 10-30% of the population carry in their bodies naturally, and it doesn't cause people (under normal circumstances) to become ill, but when a pg woman has it the baby can get it in the birth canal and become very sick. I don't know about Japan, but in the U.S. most pg women are routinely tested to see if they are colonized with GBS around week 36 and given prophylactic antibiotics during labor if they are. That prevents the vast majority of - but not all - babies from getting sick from GBS exposure.

[jessiemom]

My first 2 kids were post date meconium asp. babies. Dd was 41w2d and had meconium asp and could not breathe when she was born, I did not get to see her until she was 6 hours old, her heart almost stopped by the time they were able to get her to breathe. She is now 4 and is very bright and has no long term effects or delays as a result of her birth, she was followed until she was 2 by a developmental team but was always ahead for her age and was decided she no longer needed to go. She has always been very healthy also. Ds was 41w3d and had mec asp. also however he responded quickly and only required a little oxygen and a couple days on abx. in neo. He has been fine developmentally and was never followed, he was hospitalized at 7 days old for reflux, at 6 months for pneumonia, at 11 months for rotovirus and developed pneumonia while in the hospital, and at 20 months for an unknown virus. He never gets the sniffles but seems to catch more bacterial infections than my other 2 kids.

[aydensmama]

My son was one day shy of his due date and a NICU baby.

8 hours after birth he stopped birthing due to seizures due to two brain bleeds, one in the brain, one in the layers between the brain. He was on a vent, receiving antiboitics, and tons of tests to determine the cause of the bleeds. It took him 2 days to eat from a tube and mama, then was nursing the next day from then on. He was on a nose canola after the vent, and then was on room air for 5 days. He is on phenobarb and an apnea monitor. His bleeds have improved, and begun to be re-absorbed and turn to fluid. His seizures will be tested on a 24 hr EEG at the end of the month, which with good results will let us wean from the phenobarb and the monitor!

Those 10 days were the worst in my life! :gloomy:

[BookGoddess]

My active toddler was born at 37 weeks by C-section and spent 3 days in the NICU. We were totally caught off guard by her non-responsiveness when she was born. Aoparently all the magnesium sulfate they pumped into me to keep my blood pressure down affected DD to the point she was very lethargic when she was born. She had very low Agpar scores. She was gray. They had to resucitate her. She didn't make her first cry for at least 3 minutes. I can still picture them trying to pump oxygen into her. Really, I didn't think she was going to make it. Even the nurses thought so. One of them later told me she hadn't prayed so hard in her life before. After I was stitched up from the c-section I was wheeled to the NICU to see my DD. I couldn't recognize her as my baby. She had so many tubes coming out of her. I felt so bad for her.

All is good now. :) DD recently celebrated her her 1st birthday and she's on target meeting all the developing milestones.

[lamok]

I had a nicu because of white blood cell count - wasn't really that horrible, but was completely unnecesary. Was gbs pos. water broke as he came out, most alert newborn I've ever had, had antibiotics more than 4 hours before he was born. Anyway, my next child, I was gbs pos. too. Water broke a couple min. before born, no chance to get antibiotics. We refused everything - no pokes whatsover, even though it was against the law. And we were released early with everyones good will. The difference wasn't just in the hosp., but in that my cnm for the first one had an ob for the required backup dr., my second had a family dr. for the backup dr., so she could make the ped. calls. Also, different hosp. are more likely to pull the cps card than others.

[mama kate]

Oh wow! I am sooo glad I found this thread. My DD was a full term NICU baby who was born GBS+ (I had been tested & was negative) WE had a very long 2 week NICU stay which I stilll after a little over 2 years have a hard time coping with. We never established a good nursing relationship but I pumped for 5 months. THen started havingg PPD issues related to it & had to stop - It was better after that but I still grieve never really nursing her peacefully. She's a bouncing, full of life toddler who we cherish ever moment with. THe NICU was a blessed yet miserable place to be. She was born at Childrens in San Antonio



Here is our birth/NICUstory

Emma Lucille was born on July 27th via emergency c-section.
Then spent the next 10 days in the NICU but we are finally home. Ugh! Our birth went NOTHING as planned but we now have our healthy baby girl with us at home & couldn't be happier.
I had more than prepared myself with my training as a labor doula & the reading & births I had attended. I felt prepared that my body would do what it needed to do. That any pain I felt would only be a moment in the long life I had ahead with my long awaited baby girl. I could handle that. My pregnancy had been uneventful with just a bit of high blood pressure starting at @32 weeks which I was able to maintain with putting my feet up & drinking lots of water as much as I can.
I went in tuesday at 6 am for an induction after my blood pressure had risen again at my app't on Monday ( 40 weeks 2 days) They started pitocin at 6:30 am -I labored fine unmedicated until about 5 pm I was given nubain -when she turned posterior & the only position I was ok in (sitting indian style on the bed or rocking in the chair) she showed decels in her heart rate. At 6:30 I asked for more nubain. My OB said no with the baby showing signs of distress, At 7:30 I was given an epidural which I sobbed through the entire thing - not for pain reasons but for feeling like I failed her. I had prepared to bring her in to the world the best way I could at the time (HB midwives in the area we lived in were pretty iffy)My husband had to leave the room because he couldn't bear to see me like that. During the epidural placement the kept loosing track of her heart beat so the nurse literally begged me to put an internal monitor on her - I finally relented , too tired & scared for my baby to fight. She put it in & Emma's heart rate was fluctuating from the 80's to 130 - The nurse had someone else come & check placement of the monitor & it was in correctly - Minutes later she dropped in to the 40's & all hell broke loose - Within seconds about 10 people were in the room - the nurse yelled for me to quickly get on my hands & knees (which I did very quickly somehow)& she was paging my OB out of another c-sec he was assisting in. I became very scared once she told me to get into hands/knees position. My ob came in & said we had to do a c-sec - the last few things I remember is being ran down the hall asking my OB if the baby was going to be ok all he would say is we need to get her out.I had built a very comfortable,trusting, open relationship with my OB as he had gone through our 2 years of infertility with us- I knew he wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't totally necessary(his wife is actually a doula). after that its a bit hazy for me - Ian has filled me in as much as possible. Emma was born with apgars of 8 & 9 & seemed ok - Ian brought her to my side & I remember saying over & over "tell someone she sounds funny - she doesn't sound right - the nurses said it was normal for section babies to be a bit gurgly -in hindsight it must have been my intuition - we were in recovery for 2 hours then when we went to our room they took emma to the nursery & told Ian to come get her in an hour.
Ian went to get her in an hour as he knew how badly I needed & wanted to nurse her & see her. I had tried holding her in recovery but couldn't due to having the shakes so bad.
When Ian went to get her she was gone. They had taken her to the NICU. Well when ian went to
get her he was told she had been taken to the NICU because her oxygen saturation
was low - Normal for c-sec babies, blood work was done & we (Ian) was told her
white count was low & another was high - Our pediatrician was called & told Ian
that it could be because of infection or
stress but he wanted to treat it as an infection just to be safe - More blood
work was done & she came back group strep positive. I finally was able to get
out of bed around 6 am to go see her - I tried at 1 am & couldn't get out of bed
(more tears & anger - I wanted my baby) Wednesday was filled with tears & fear
once we were told about the group b strep, she had to have a spinal tap that day
& that really threw me. It came back clear though.
She spent the next 9 days in the NICU in an oxygen hood for 2 days, with an IV
in her head for the whole time (poor thing) & several days she had a nasal
feeding tube. I was with her as much as possible during all visiting hours.

She is thriving now - We are working on nursing & I am trying to pump when she
won't nurse so I can cut out the formula. she is a great sleeper though.

I feel happy things turned out as well as they did & her pediatrician was sooo
fantastic. He was there everyday to see her. If anyone is in San Antonio, TX &
needs a ped. LMK.

I am sad I didn't get the birth I had hoped for but I feel blessed to have this
angel in our lives - Ian says it will only make us better parents - I hope so.

I am still working through everything, trying to stay positive but some moments
are hard ecspecially when I have to break down & give her formula because she is
freaking out hungry - I can't let her starve & she needs the calories one way or
another for energy to fully heal from everything. I so want us to have a
positive nursing relationship but I can't do it if she is miserable. Any advice
& insight is greatly appreciated.

[farmlife]

Thank you everyone for sharing so much. This stuff is eating me up this weekend. One year birthday tomorrow! woohoo!!!!
Nobody in my life gets it. But nobody in my life was in it with me. That was just me and my Jack.
Wanted to post but don't have the emotional stamina for more. off to make this birthday party something special!