Lots of great stories here. I’m amazed at how many preemies I run into now all grown up and perfect human beings. My own daughter was born by emergency c-section at 23 weeks and 6 days. She weighed 620 grams, or 1 pound, 5 ounces, so I guess she’s the reigning peanut of the thread! She’s going to be 3 in February, and we just got the good news/bad news that she’s so “normal” we won’t qualify for therapy through the public school system. Once her Early Intervention (state funded therapy) closes on her third birthday, that’s it! (Unless something comes up later, of course.)
One thing I’ve come to realize about developmental delays is that there’s delayed and then there’s delayed, if you know what I mean. Caileigh, technically, has some delay in both gross motor skills and speech. But, had she not been a micropreemie and under such constant monitoring, no one would have suggested I have her screened in the first place. “Gross motor skills”, in her case, mean it took her until around 32 months to run - a real, textbook “moment of no support” run. She got around just fine, even quite quickly, but because it didn’t look like the “run” the PT was looking for, it counted on her tests as a delay. Contrast that to another little girl in our playgroup who is so hypotonic that she cannot sit unaided, at 20 months old. THAT’S a delay worth worrying about.
Same thing for the speech. She didn’t speak a work until 24 months or so - but then again, neither did her (full-term) brother. She’s now speaking in full sentences, sometimes clear as a bell, sometimes with odd sound substitutions or poor articulation. It takes people who aren’t in her household a few minutes with her to start understanding her speech, and she doesn’t pronounce her “l” or “r” yet. Again, not uncommon in toddlers, and enough to show up on the tests as “Delayed”, but a far cry from a kid who can’t speak at all.
So if your friend starts freaking herself out about the possibility of delays, remind her that very, very functional kids who would never be tested or diagnosed were they full-term are still tallied as “delayed”, and they skew the statistics some. Here she is now!
When I was growing up the pastor’s daughter had micro-preemie twins - I think they were each about a pound, they could wear their Grandma’s wedding rings like arm bracelets.
The two boys are happy and healthy now (in their early 20s) - progress is neo-natal care has been amazing.
I reckon you can’t pile on too much good news in a case like this, so I offer my daughter’s best friend from school. I never would have guessed, but her mom tells me she was born at 27 weeks. I don’t know how much she weighed, but now she is totally normal - no lasting effects, and she’s a charming kid.
Something you might want to share with the parents - kangaroo care has had some fabulous results for premies, regulating their respiration, heart rate, and temperature better than an incubator, and helping to generally give them a leg up. My understanding is the baby stays hooked up to all the same equipment, they just lie on mom instead of lying on the floor of the incubator.
Apparently they had tried some sort of gel?? on A to see how it went and Clayton didn’t like that at all, so that’s why they ended up delivering, and by C-section.
He’s breathing on his own! And she thinks he’s the most beautiful thing ever
My daughter was born at 26 weeks and she was a 2 pounder. She’s now 12 years old and in 7th grade. She’s an honor roll student and has developed as fast as people her age group, physically and mentally. Good luck!
Good to hear success stories. I just hit 35 weeks today and almost went in last night, I was contracting about 10 minutes apart for a good 3 hours. This morning I saw my Dr., I am a little dialated (1 1/2cm) and the contractions have eased but not stopped. They are guessing he is about 5 pounds now. My Dr. says if I go into labor they won’t stop me, but we are trying to get a few more weeks along if we can, so now I am on “restricted activity”. Not really bed rest as I am allowed to work at my desk job, but I am supposed to rest as much as possible.
I know the stats are very good for after 34 weeks, but it just seems too early! This was supposed to be a Christmas baby, not Thanksgiving!
I was about 5.5 pounds when born at 33 weeks. (My sister was 9lb 12oz full term. My mom was born by c-section at 44 weeks (cause they let you go that long in the 40’s) at 12lbs.) Big babies are normal for us, but the doctor sure was surprised. Spent about a week in the incubator, but that was it. No asthma, but I did have an annoying propensity to get bronchitis every. single. year. Cough would linger for weeks and weeks. And I have lousy vision, but I think lung/eye problems are pretty ubiquitous among premies.
My adopted grandma was just barely 3 lbs when she was born in the winter of 1936 (the only one to survive of a set of triplets). No one expected her to survive the night, let alone another 71 years.
Oh, what a little schmunchkin! I see his feeding tube is in place - are they letting Mom give him pumped milk? It’s so amazingly good for preemies. And tell her not to make the same mistake I did - that weird clear yellow liquid she gets for the first couple of days, in like only 2 mL amounts, one drop at a time? That’s not too small to bother keeping. In fact, that’s the GREAT STUFF! That’s preemie colostrum, or as our NICU nurses called it, “Mother’s Gold”. It’s a great big baby gulp of antibodies, an oral booster shot for early life. As soon as the doctor gives the clear for oral feeds, they can give it to him a mL at a time through that feeding tube.
My boyfriend was a good handful of weeks premature - don’t recall the exact number, but he was the most premature baby born at that particular largish hospital, some twenty-odd years ago.
They sent him in to Oslo, where there was a better preemie-care unit. And had to haggle with the doctor in charge, who just would not believe that a baby that large was that many weeks premature, and wanted to send him back :eek:
He weighed 1.7 k, well over three pounds and a half. I’m guessing him being premature was a lucky break for his mom
Here is a thread celebrating evilemmy’s 3rd birthday. She was born weighing less than a pound. Here is her one-year birthday thread that tells the whole story.
I hope your friend’s baby does as well as Emma Kate, gigi.
Just a story, that though I wasn’t a preemie, I just thought I’d share. When I was born, they had to put me in a french fry warmer. Something about how I had a low body temperature at birth. I was also one of the “blue babies” you hear about.
