Coming home on oxygen - experiences?

[Marleysgirl]

Hi'y'all mums to preemie wonders ...

There was a vague mention today of Andrew possibly coming home on oxygen - he's 38 weeks tomorrow, weighs 4lb 1oz, and currently in 0.2 litre. We haven't yet got BF established, but I'm presuming that's next on the agenda before he leaves SCBU!

I'd be interested to hear all your experiences of this, did any of you bring your babies home on oxygen, how does it work etc.

 

[embojet]

Hi, Molly came home on oxygen. She was born at 29 weeks and was on and off o2 the whole time she was in SCBU. In the end she was only on 0.03 litres, but refused to go without it! They decided to let her home after 7 weeks ion SCBU as this was the only thing keeping her there. She was on o2 until she was 3.5 months old. I was a bit worried and scared about it before leaving the SCBU but it was a lot better than I imagined. A few days before Molly was due to be discharged the o2 company delivered the o2 concentrator and a couple of portable tanks. They were brilliant. They explained how it works etc. As Molly was not expected to be on o2 for the long term, we just had one tube leading from the concentrator that ran the whole length of the house. The other option would have been to drill holes in the walls and fit an o2 outlet in each room she would use. The o2 concentrator was quite noisy, a bit like a vacuum running but not quite as loud, so I would suggest to put it somewhere it wont bug you too much (we had it in Mollys room upstairs as she was sleeping in our room at the time). The portable tanks were really easy to use, just a bit of a pain to carry round. We took our portable tanks to the SCBU for a couple of days before Molly was discharged to practise using them, and we stayed there overnight a couple of nights to get used to it which helped a lot. The comunity nurse from the SCBU nurse visited evry week to check Molly's stats and help us wean her off it. We started by giving her one hour off, then 2, then 4 etc until she was off it completely. We got leant a stats monitor by the nurse, and just checked her stats a couple of times each time she was off the o2. We also got leant an apnea (sp?) moniotor to stick to her belly, that would alarm in the night if she stopped breathing. This was leant to us by our HV, but I wish we hadnt had it really. It gave us loads of false alarms and we evenually stopped using it. The nurse had said that she was not on o2 because her breathing was effected, just because breathing was taking her extra energy that should be used to put on weight. The electricity that the concentrator uses gets reimbursed to you.
Sorry about the ramble, just realised I've written an essay! Let me know if you want to know anything else and glad Andrew is doing so well xx