Impatient

[angsea]

Gloria has been on C-Pap for five days now and is doing very well on it. It is really nice to be able to hold her without a nurse hovering over us making sure we don't extubate her!

I must admit, despite this great forward leap - I am still impatient. Her due date is in ten days but she's probably not going to be coming home for awhile after that... she has to get weaned down to nasal cannula and then she has learn to eat by mouth.

So how long does it usually take a neonate to learn how to swallow, suck and breathe at the same time?

 

[25weeker]

As you have probably been told every baby is different. My lo didn't have any problems sucking and swallowing but it took her about 10 days to remember to breath so there was a lot of desatting initially.

I know it's hard as I felt my lo was never going to come off cpap but things happen much quicker at the final stages.

Hopefully your lo will be onto nasal cannula soon

 

[vermeil]

I`m wondering that too - they`ve started weaning mine off cpap slowly. They started him at 2 hours out of 8 on nasal canula for two days. Then raised it to 3 for another two days. Some babies start far more slowly; I`ve seen some at 2 hours out of 24. He`s on 50% now - 4 hours cpap, 4 hours nasal canula. Been at that stage for a week. At the end of the 4 hours of weaning he gets really tired. You can tell he`s struggling to breathe, really working hard to pull air in. It`s hard to see, but it`s slowly working - he`s down from 26% O2 on cpap to 21%.

I know how you feel, this is the start of the home stretch, it seems to take forever to wean them off these dang breathing machines. *huugs*