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Preemies
eating and oxygen desaturation
My daughter has a problem with her oxygen levels desaturating while she is eating. In the NICU we could watch her levels on the monitor and take the bottle out when necessary to give her a chance to catch her breath.
Now we just brought her home and the nurses told me to be careful when she eats but I am having a hard time detemining when her oxygen is low without the monitors. Any tips on this?
Any one else's baby have this problem and have any advice? When did your baby grow out of this and get the sucking/swallowing/breathing reflex down? Our little girl was born at 34 weeks but now she is 36 weeks. Thanks!
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Re: eating and oxygen desaturation
Did they send you home on oxygen?
DS didn't have as much "desaturations" as he did Bradys but the sent him home one a monitor and O2 anyway... It took a few weeks (2-3) past his EDD to finally get it together.
DS was a "tell tale" Brady/Dstat guy, color change was almost instant... other things we learned to look for was his sucking, if he stopped sucking we took the bottle out to let him catch his breath. And limiting the number of sucks so he'd remember to breath.
Her color is going to be the biggest indicator. Especially around her lips. I would call the NICU and ask to speak to a nurse. They should be able to give you some more info so you can feel completely comfortable feeding your LO.
My LO (also born at 34 weeks) would desat during and after feedings while in the NICU. The doctors wouldn't let her go home until the desatting issue was resolved. After seeing an ENT (ear nose throat) pediatric specialist and a GI specialist at a larger hospital, they determined that she had reflux, and also she underwent a swallow study that showed she was silently aspirating while swallowing. Silent aspiration means that fluid enters the lungs but she doesn't cough, so it's dangerous in that you don't know when it happens. If left untreated, it could lead to pneumonia.
She had to go home on an NG tube because they couldn't test for thickened liquids at the time because the of the FDA recall on Simply Thick. However, one month after discharge we came back for a repeat swallow study. She still aspirated thin liquids, but our pediatrician and neonatologist agreed to let her try the Simply Thick since the FDA risks had gone down, and she did really well with it. I was disappointed that she still is aspirating thin liquids, which means we can't breastfeed, we can only do bottles. The speech therapist told us that the aspiration is still just part of the learning to suck/swallow/breathe. She's 8 weeks past her due date, so she hasn't outgrown it yet
Have you seen a speech therapist? Maybe you could ask to try a thickened liquid? Definitely see a speech therapist and ask for her recommendations and suggestions. He/she might have you try feeding in a side-lying position and pacing the swallowing so your LO isn't overwhelmed.
Good luck!
My son had this problem, but it was super-subtle. He wouldn't even actually desat, but his weight was plateauing. So, they figured out that he wasn't getting enough oxygen when he was eating.
He came home on oxygen (he was born at 26 weeks and released at 36 weeks), but we ditched it pretty early on (within a couple of weeks). I wish I had better advice, but, in our case, we just sort of "knew" that our son didn't need it anymore. He was sucking down his bottles like it was not a big deal, and he was gaining weight like a champ. Is your daughter eating well? For us, that was the indicator that he wasn't doing well with his oxygen.
I could have written your posts exactly. We didn't go home on oxygen or a monitor either but knew DD had a tendency to desat or even have quick bradies (the kind that "don't count" but freak you out anyway?) during feeds. When we bottle fed her we were just very careful to count her sucks and pull the bottle out frequently to make her breathe before starting again. We found she did best in the sidelying position. With breastfeeding she paces herself better. For both, watching her color was the best indicator. The good news is that within a few weeks she wasn't really struggling anymore, though we did move on to reflux meds which may have helped too.
Our precious girl, born at 27 weeks.