Asystole for a second..

LisaandBryan

Ok the nurse wasn't concerend but I am so freaked out. Today at the hospital DYlan had a normal brady..in the  70's and then umm went to 0 and then shot right back up  to the 100's.  HIs oxygen level didn't go down and he was breathing and his color was fine so what the hell was that...ummm 0?  His heart stopped beating for a second?  I am so freaked out.  He's had an echocariodgram and ekg there were normal.  OMG, why did I have to be there why it happened?

mcdev

How scary! ?The good news is that the nurse was there for it and was not concerned. ?That would lead me to believe there was a simple explanation for it. ?Maybe a lead came loose? ?Definitely ask the nurse on duty tomorrow to explain it to you. ?I think sometimes the nurses become so used to all of the alarms that it desensitizes them and they probably didn't think to sit and explain it to you.

Also, where in NJ are you? ?I am also from NJ.?

LisaandBryan

Hi I am Northern New JErsey....warren county....babies are in the nicu at morristown.  What about you?

mcdev

Born and raised in Warren County! I lived in Washington Twp and graduated from Warren Hills. ?Is that anywhere near you? I now live in Gloucester County though. ?My babies were born and cared for at Kennedy Hospital in Turnersville. ?I've always heard good things about Morristown. Everything going ok so far? ?I'm mean despite the scary alarm today?

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I'm thinking the lead probably came loose. For about the second half of JW's NICU stay lead would not stick to him for longer than about 4 hours. We saw lots of 0s simply because the leads would come loose. The important thing is his color and breathing were ok.

april062604

if it went to 0 and then shot back up to 100 and his color was normal i'd say it was a bad read on his monitor. ?maybe the lead wasn't on his foot tight enough. ?during a really bad brady with an O2 sat of 0 one would expect to see 2 things...color change and a slower climb back to 100. ?if he was home on an apnea monitor and you had an alarm and his color was totally totally fine you'd assume it was a false alarm. ?they always told me to "look at the baby" not at the monitors. ?i saw cassidy choke twice in the nicu and they had to ambu bag her once in front of me. ?it was around 36 weeks gestation so i was far removed from the scar scary stuff and it was a total shocker. ?i hated that it happened and i hated that i was there for it. ?i'm not a doctor, so i really could be wrong, and even if his breathing was fine (as in respirations being measured) he could have been making the breathing motion without actually exchanging air (sometimes this happens in preemies). i'd mention the situation to your neonatologist or to another nurse and see what they say about it. HTH

mhop

That is very scary.  Hopefully it was just a loose lead.

alliwalton

You can look at where his O2 sat number is and there should be a little number in the corner and that is his heart rate, you can see if they correlate, if they dont correlate then the lead is loose.  Hope that helps, also some monitors need to be programmed so you can see that heart rate next to his O2 sats, which is something the nurse can do on the monitor.

Carilyn

I agree that it was probably just the monitor.  True asystole would require a prolonged time without a heart rate.  If the nurse wasn't concerned, you shouldn't be either!  I'm a NICU nurse and we usually tell parents it isn't their job to read the monitor, that is our job, you pay attention to your baby.  We'll let you know if there is something alarming going on with his monitor.