My wife gave birth to a beautiful 8+lb baby boy last weekend. But he was born covered in merconium (he had his first bowel movement while still inside), and refused to wait until they suctioned it all off before he started screaming at the indignity of it all.
So he ended up inhaling a bit, which in turn clogged his lungs up a bit,which ended up causing a pulmonary embalism on both sides. He’s currently doing ok, they’re waiting to see if the air pockets will get reabsorbed before going with the chest tube or using needles to reduce the pressure. He’s breathing on his own, but he can only take really shallow breaths, so they have his head inside of an oxygen hood in the NICU instead of in mom’s room.
Other than the breathing, he’s by far the biggest, fussiest, crankiest baby in the NICU, so they think he’s going to be fine. But right now he isn’t fine, and the new parents are a bit, well, new parent-ish. It’s hard not to be able to hold him, although at least we can go and visit whenever we want and touch him to our hearts content. It’s just hard looking at him with the IVs sticking out and all the little leads attached to him and stuff.
Good thoughts and stories of other parents who went through this would be appreciated.
LordVor, you have all my best wishes and thoughts.
As the mother of a very small micropreemie who had numerous pneumothoraxes (and therefore chest tubes) while in the NICU, I understand your concern and worry.
Feel free to email me if you want. I’m happy to talk to you through this.
If it will make you feel better, I can post in detail about my daughter’s tribulations with breathing since it might make BabyVor’s maybe seem not so scary for you.
You may find when you bring him home that it’s nervewracking. After seeing nurses check his temp every hour and having his heart rate monitored every second and and his oxygen saturation level recorded, and knowing he’s been looked after by health professionals with special training and years of experience, you might wonder if it’s not crazy for them to just pull those wires off of him and hand him over to a couple of amateurs. But he can survive at your house. And he will. Let’s hope he gets there soon.
Good thoughts are on the way…
Hey, it’s gonna be o.k. that stuff isn’t all that serious, and if he’s big and cranky, he’ll be raising healthy hell very soon. I feel for you not being able to hold him, but this, too shall pass. I had to beat my son with a rubber hammer to get him to cough up the froth. Talk about a downer! “here, take your first newborn and hit him till he cries. Welcome to the world, son!”
I don’t have experience to share, but I will offer those good thoughts for Baby Vor! I know it must be scary for you; though I didn’t have the same experience, I know what it’s like to stand helplessly by with a baby in the hospital! I hope he’ll be home and in your arms soon.
Did you mean “pneumothorax” as another poster said? Embolism is a blood clot and is scary shit indeed - likely to be fatal even if it occurs in a hospital Pneumothorax is when air gets outside the lungs themselves - baby winds up with a collapsed lung 'cause all the air is outside, trouble breathing etc.
My daughter was a preemie and her struggles to breathe caused her lung to spring a leak, resulting in pneumothorax. She was on a ventilator for 5 days while they put a chest tube in to drain out the misplaced air. About 12 hours before they planned to remove the vent (because she was healing well) she decided she’d had Enough and pulled it out herself She’s got healthier lungs than I do now!
Yes, those wires etc. are scary. I was terrified of pulling something out when we were finally allowed to hold her (she was 6 days old then).
Ultimately, they sent my daughter home at 2.5 weeks with a one-page preprinted sheet of discharge instructions and significant feeding issues. Fortunately she wasn’t our first child, and we knew something about how to deal with the feeding issues (breastfeeding). Very stressful 2 weeks though, with this new, fragile baby - it’s a blur of sleeping, bottle feeding, pumping, attempting to breastfeed, pumping, tube feeding…
Scary! But sounds like they know what they’re doing.
If wife is planning to breastfeed, be sure to see an LC if there are any latch issues AT ALL. Deep suctioning and tubes (or even a poke in the soft palate with a suction bulb) can affect their behavioral response to nursing (oral aversion). BTDT, and there is no reason to suffer without help. If it doesn’t seem to work well, call in an LC immediately, and save yourselves a huge load of worry and pain. (though most kids do fine, just wanted to offer that tip from experience - there is help, and there is no reason at all not to take advantage of it!)
Good thoughts for the wee-one. Good thoughts for the new-parentish-ones. Warm fuzzy snuggling-at-home soon thoughts all around.
When I was born I was covered in amniotic fluid. My mother (phantomdiver) says that I didn’t get any of it inside me, but IIRC (from being tomd so, not from specific memories of my own birth:D) I turned out just fine.
Well, relatively speaking. But none of my current problems have anything to do with that one event;)
At least he will have interesting baby pictures to show to his future SOs. “This is from my bionic phase…”
[sub]Trying to insert a touch of levity. If it’s unwelcome/warranted/etc just lemme know:)[/sub]
Slight hijack, but I suspect my kid would have been out of the NICU in 48 hours if you’d been there to tell them that, hedra. After they got through the meconium and temperature issues, he was okay but he wouldn’t eat, and when he did eat it wasn’t in the prescribed amounts they thought a baby his size should be eating. So they’d force feed him X amount, and then he’d barf some up. Which made them think he had a problem with his gastrointestinal system, so they did all these tests to rule out stuff.
It wasn’t until I got him home and saw an LC and told her about the birth that she said “Well of course he wouldn’t eat after that deep suctioning” and then I told her about the barfing and she said “And they probably fed him more than he needed!”
I think common sense and a little faith that he’d be okay would have saved my insurance company $14,000. Har. But we were first time parents, what did we know, and I guess it’s the hospital’s job to be vigilant, even a bit paranoid.
Uh anyway, not so say BabyVor doesn’t need to be where he is–with lung problems, you want the best care possible. I hope you can hold him real soon.
Pneumothorax is when air gets outside the lungs themselves - baby winds up with a collapsed lung 'cause all the air is outside, trouble breathing etc.
She’s got healthier lungs than I do now!