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Mamas who are spending time in the NICU

6K views 86 replies 16 participants last post by  sehbub 
#1 ·
Okay mamas, we have a few of us, so lets use this area to talk about Life in the NICU

Of course any mamas from the other boards are welcome to join in but into yourself, your original due date and when you delivered and any questions you have or frustrations etc.

I am Amy age 34, I had an original due date of June 1 and Maggie was born as most of you know at 24 weeks, 6 days on Feb 15th. Maggie weighed in at 1 lb 12 oz and now is 4 lbs 12 oz. she spent 10 weeks total in the NICU and is now in a special care nursery.

Looking forward to talking!
 
#53 ·
Amy, she's ADORABLE! And so alert! Wow!

And congrats to Sehbub and Niko about coming home tomorrow! That's awesome!!!!

Loudmama is right... You really feel like a mama when you get those little ones home. I hope everyone has their babies home real soon!
 
#55 ·
Anyone else even the littlest bit nervous about bringing the babes home? I'm starting to get butterflies in my stomach! Partly because I'm just so incredibly excited to finally get to see her all the time, and partly because we are bringing her home on the heart monitor and in the back of my mind I have this horrible fear that something awful will happen and we're so far from the hospital! I guess that's normal for all mamas though, not just mamas of preemies. I can't sit still! I'm running around like crazy trying to get everything ready for her to come home! My house is a wreck 'cause I haven't been home in a month!!

GAH!
 
#56 ·
Amy, she's so cute!

We heard from the dr today and Marlow is scheduled to come home this Saturday! She had apnea on Monday so we have to wait out the mandatory 5 days episode free (we are praying she doesn't have another one!!!)

Her butt rash is finally gone. The nurses say it was probably due to the antibiotics.

I'm so excited to finally (hopefully) get her home soon. At the same time I feel guilty about showing too much excitement in the NICU. I know it's probably hard on the other parents.
 
#57 ·
Marlow's Mom,
I think it gives the other parents hope that their baby will be home soon too! I know it would give me hope. They are probably a bit jealous that you get to take your baby home with you and they are once again leaving the hospital without their baby... but... Deep down, I think it keeps the spirts up.
I'm so proud of all of you! I dont know how you do it everyday.... Our thoughts and prayers will be with you all..
 
#60 ·
Wow, I feel so fortunate after reading what you other mamas went through in NICU. My DS came @ 34 weeks 2 days. After the first 2 days we were just working on getting him to nipple all his feeds. He was there for 23 days which seemed like forever, I can't imagine staying longer. My husband liked to tell people we had a "Rent-A-Baby" while he was still in the hospital since he wasn't home with us.

Fortunately, our hospital had been certified "baby friendly". I'm not sure what all this means, but they are VERY pro breastfeeding. I got so much support from them. They encouraged me to pump at baby's bedside to increase my milk supply and had several pumps to use while there. The last two days he was there I BF exclusively and was able to stay in a "sleep room" that is available to families with children in NICU or peds. I can't believe some hospitals don't do kangaroo care. This was the best for us. I would put him on my chest and after a few minutes we would both be sound asleep - I swear it's the best I slept during those three weeks. My pediatrician kept reassuring me that they've never had to keep one there until kindergarten which only ticked me off at the time.

BTW if you are getting poor care you should talk to a hospital administrator. I had to do this once when my mom was in ICU and it was helpful. They told me we could ALWAYS ask ffor a different nurse for ANY reason. You have to be your own advocate for good care.

I'm so glad your babies are coming home!
 
#65 ·
Hi All! I'm joining in. I'm Cindy from New York City. My son Matthew was born April 26, 2006 at 35 weeks GD. My original dd was May 29, so he's still adjusted to minus 2 weeks old. Baby is home and doing well, but I contracted a C. difficile colon infection that has me having to take antibiotics and pumping away until I'm off them. Matt is unfortunately being formula fed until then. I also now have a hyperactive thyroid which will hopefully go away on its own. I get tested again in 2 1/2 weeks.

The most frustrating thing for me is how long Matt takes to eat. He can take over an hour to finish a bottle, then I have to pump, change him, eat, bathe, etc, not to mention the infection is causing all sorts of secondary infections...

Hoping that the infection goes away with this first dose of antibiotics. If all goes well I can SNS him starting 9am next Sunday.
 
#66 ·
Welcome Cindy and welcome your new baby!

I can relate to it taking a while to get the baby to bottle feed. DH feeds Maggie her bottles of breastmilk/premie formula to "fatten"her up and it can take a good hour to feed 50 ccs sometimes.
 
#67 ·
Sam's the same way. Sometimes it takes 15 minutes for a 50cc feed, and other times it's almost an hour, then I pump and get her re-swaddled and back to bed.

Amy, how did you help Maggie latch on? That's the biggest problem for Sam and I. I'm thinking it will work like the lightswitch for bottle feeding, and one day she'll just "get it" but I was wondering if there was anything I could do to make things a little easier for her. As of now, I offer the breast after I've pumped a bit so that she doesn't have to pull for letdown. My nipples are about the size of a quarter, and flat, so maybe that's part of the problem...her mouth just isn't big enough yet. She just started taking the full nipple on the preemie bottles, so do you think we should just wait it out?

And welcome, Cindy! Glad to hear baby is doing well, and keeping fingers crossed that you're healthy again soon!
 
#68 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by sehbub
Amy, how did you help Maggie latch on?
I offered the breast before the bottle and now that we are home and not on that stupid rigid schedule, I offer it more and more since the bottle gives more than the breast, she will get the breast more. My goal is for her to keep gaining and be at 4 bottles daily by next week and bottles once in a while as main goal eventually.

The monitors keep going off and there is nothing wrong. The leads are bad on one so I just unplugged it today and said F**k it. She is at my side 24/7 so I can see her. Also when it goes off, she is fine and I know since I have seen her desat before. Besides the other monitor picks stuff up faster.
 
#69 ·
Marlow's not home yet. She keeps having apnea episodes. We were supposed to be getting her tomorrow but she had 2 more episodes this morning.

The NICU is so crowded right now. The doctors are putting her on caffeine and a monitor and then we can finally bring her home. We are now just waiting for that monitor to arrive and then we get her. I wonder if the monitor is going to be really complicated for us to use.

It's great to finally get a real go home date without having to stress out about her having episodes and taking full bottles.

It always scares me to give her the breast and have her not take enough milk and then have to insert another gavage tube. It's so hard to watch. But now I have to make sure I'm getting enough milk for her. She's up to 60cc a feeding and I'm only producing about 70cc a pumping.

Here is last weeks pics...still with tube

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...y/Swaddled.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...owwithMama.jpg
 
#73 ·
OK-Im a bit mad.
:

Maggie came home on monitors oxygen etc. The monitors have driven us crazy since they are dinging non stop about nothing. the spo2 one goes down to like 20 and then immediatly up to 100 again. Its also super loud. Then the leads all suck so we got this wrap around thing. This morning when dh checked it, it made Maggie black and blue. I said enough and we unplugged the monitors after them doing this for 40 hours straight. Guess what? We have a baby now! She is so happy to be off them and actually slept so soundly this morning and nursed very well. Now she is alert and happy so I put her on a blanket for some tummy time and boom- she turned over and had a satified look on her face. So the monitors can stick it and I can have my baby! She sleeps near us or with us, I nurse her all day around the clock or wear her. I think I will know is there is an issue. The nurse agreed


BUT I am still mad she had to go thru this and we had to pull our hair out over such nonsense!
 
#74 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by sehbub
Amy, how did you help Maggie latch on? That's the biggest problem for Sam and I. I'm thinking it will work like the lightswitch for bottle feeding, and one day she'll just "get it" but I was wondering if there was anything I could do to make things a little easier for her.
Are you using a nipple shield? That can *really* help get baby on the breast. It's still an articifical nipple, and you'll have to wean off THAT, but it's easier than pumping and giving bottles!


The LC at my NICU had all preemies use a nipple shield when first breastfeeding - she didn't even have us try without it. And Joshua was able to go home 100% breastfeeding because of that nipple shield. I was SO glad, because he was needing more milk at that point, and my supply was going to dwindle if I kept with just a pump. I needed the more efficient baby to get my supply back up, which he did quite nicely.


For weaning off the shield, I just offered once a day without it, and if it didn't work, I put the shield on. After about 2 weeks, one day he finally latched onto the breast and started sucking like a pro! I think he did it for the next feeding too, then after that he couldn't get it. It took another 2 weeks to completely wean off that shield, but once he had gotten the breast itself, I just offered that first, then put the shield on if I needed it.
 
#75 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by Amys1st
Maggie came home on monitors oxygen etc. The monitors have driven us crazy since they are dinging non stop about nothing. the spo2 one goes down to like 20 and then immediatly up to 100 again. Its also super loud.
I've heard that about the monitors. Ugh.

So has she had any apnea episodes lately? If not, it sounds like you don't need the monitors anyway! Once DS went 5 days without apnea episodes, he only had ONE more, and it was during a feeding, which really I don't count as "real" apnea... It's more the fact that he's a piggy and forgets to breathe while eating.
After that (the first night home, btw), he never stopped breathing again.

When do they think Maggie will be able to come off the O2? I'll bet that's kind of a pain too, so I hope it will be soon.
 
#76 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by boscopup
I've heard that about the monitors. Ugh.

So has she had any apnea episodes lately? If not, it sounds like you don't need the monitors anyway! Once DS went 5 days without apnea episodes, he only had ONE more, and it was during a feeding, which really I don't count as "real" apnea... It's more the fact that he's a piggy and forgets to breathe while eating.
After that (the first night home, btw), he never stopped breathing again.

When do they think Maggie will be able to come off the O2? I'll bet that's kind of a pain too, so I hope it will be soon.

She has had no episodes for a long time - about since a week before she came home but that one bout of episodes is why she had the o2 and monitors. She has had none and again all were feeding or pooping related. But since I pulled the plug on the monitors she is this very happy chatty baby who has taken to rolling over already!
 
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