Newbie here with a 33+5 premie

[razra]

Hi everyone

I had my little boy via emergency c section in the early hours of Saturday morning. I had complete placenta previa and went into early labour which triggered a massive bleed so they pulled him out.

He weighs an impressive 5lbs 10 oz and I had the steroid injections 30/31 march so we didn't need to worry about those.

He is down in nicu attached to a CPAP machine. They have said he is very quiet which concerns them
He also had a difficult entrance to the world as he was stuck and his arm is very badly bruised as a result ( all the way from his shoulder down to his tiny little fingers) combined with various scratches and bruises on the rest of him.

I'm so scared for him.
Has anyone had a 33 weeker?

The CPAP machine keeps triggering an alarm but every time I ask what it is I just get told not to worry nobody actually tells me why it's doing it so I feel really alone and really worried.

 

[dizz]

I had a 33+6 weeker a couple of weeks ago. She was incredibly quiet up until probably a few days ago - when all of a sudden someone's abducted her and replaced her with a normal baby who cries when things don't suit her! I'll be honest - it really pisses me off when people go on about how angelic and quiet she is - she ain't being an angel - she was jaundiced and drowsy about that, and she was also quiet because, well, she shouldn't flipping well BE here yet!

We were in NNICU for 3 days (2 on top level dependency, 1 in the lower dependency bit) then we've been on a maternity ward under transitional care (this has been varying in quality from excellent to shambolic) from the end of day 3 until now (I think we're on day 13 or so now - her notes are at the other end of the bed and I can't be bothered to move to check to be honest!). She was being tube+bottle fed (I expressed as much milk as I could) until a day ago when they took the tube out... and we're currently just waiting for a weigh-in to see if she's gained/held weight in which case they'll let us go home today.

The machines are dreadful - all the beeping and wires... plus when I was trying to have some skin to skin down in neo-natal - I ended up with all her wires falling off and getting stuck to me (made for some interesting readings!)... but the staff down there were fantastic and I trusted their judgement... we had to go back down there the other day to get a tube resited (staff absences meaning that the midwives up here didn't have a clue about what to do with her when it was acting up) and they were all really keen to see her again and how she was doing. Took me a few hours but I started to figure out if the staff knew which alarms and beeps to worry about - and they weren't concerned - neither should I be... heck - I remember in surgery when I was getting spinal blocked - there was something beeping and I was freaking out about that (I don't like things beeping that are attached to me) - and asking what it was, and got the reply "It's about 20 grand's worth of something that makes a really annoying and pointless beeping noise."

He's a good weight - Erin was 4lb 14 when she was born - she dropped from 2.24kg down to 2.10kg and was back up to 2.19 when they weighed her a couple of days ago. She only had one steroid injection before deciding she was coming - I was really worried about that - but they all told me that one was fantastic to get into her, two would have just been amazing.

Most of what we've just gone through - apart from a spot of jaundice meaning time under the light box (I hated this - she got so wound up being blindfolded and naked) - the main issue we've had has just been her feeding... I'd say that it's only in the last couple of days (we're now into toward the end of week 35 equivalent gestation) that that has all really clicked together and she's started to fly - but when she took off, just as the staff told me, they turn the corner really fast - we went from her tube coming out the night before last - to possibly going home today if she's doing ok with her weight (and since she's been a bottomless milk-pit for about the last 36 hours... my fingers are crossed).

I'll be honest - it's been one heck of a slog and it's taken a big toll on my mental and physical health. Our hospital though isn't brilliant for care and how it's set up - their "transition care" system seems to very conveniently fob everything off onto mothers - making it nigh-on impossible for them to leave the hospital at all... other hospitals don't seem to be as inhuman in how they do these things. Because there's no facilities for dads to stay - everything falls back on the mothers as soon as the dads get kicked out at 9pm... oh how I've hated my husband for being able to walk away at times - it's put a collossal strain on our relationship. Since maternity wards tend to do EVERYONE's heads in after a night or so - a fortnight living full-time on one isn't fun - I've got a face full of very severe eczema and I'm still suffering a lot from stress, coupled with what I suspect may be PTSD from the circumstances concerning her birth. Like I say though - some other hospitals are fantastic - ours is just a bad apple in how their post-neo-natal unit care's set up.

 

[razra]

Aww Hun, it sounds like you have had a terrible time it definitely pounds to me like you may have either PTSD or some post natal depression hun which oven what you have one through isn't surprising. Make sure you get one help

Glad to hear your little one is on well, that must be such a huge relief

Thank you for sharing your experiences, although you have had. Tough time of it it helps to know your little one is doing well xx


I've just been down to see Jacob and he is under the blue light box now as he is jaundiced. They have told me that whilst it's not a severe case he has developed it quicker than they would like so keeping my fingers crossed they have caught it early. He has however been off the ventilators twice in the night and managed about 2 hours off it each time so hopefully that is a good sign. I have been expressing milk and although I'm only getting a max of 2ml at a time at least I feel like I am helping him as much as I can. He is being tube fed it although they have said when he can cope with being off the ventilator for short periods without getting too tired that they will let me try to breast feed him.

 

[Dinah93]

I have a 28 weeker, now 32+2. NICU is a very scary place at first, but the one thing to always remember is unless you see the staff panic, you don't need to. I've been there a month now, and I've seen the doctors running because something was that bad only 3 times - and once was because of a garbled call from the A&E.

200ml of milk at a time is amazing, I've been exclussively expressing since DD was born, I do both breasts in each session for around 15mins each, and I only get 30-50ml so I struggle to even get 200ml a day. I'm hopeful once she's taking directly from me my body will naturally ramp up.

The cpap alarm is probably his sats rate. When it goes off look at his monitor - there is a percentage number on there which should ideally be between 85%-95%, the alarm tends to go off over 97% or under 80% (although is set slightly differently for all babies). They do go off all the time, as in maybe 100 times a day, if it is beeping for quite a few mins solidly at 97%+ that means they don't need quite as much oxygen as they're being given and their settings can be tweaked down a bit. If it's beeping for a few mins below 80%, or falls very fast (ie 80% down to 50% in 2 or 3 mins) then they need a bit more support and will be tweaked up. But really, don't worry if it's just beeping once or twice or for a minute, they really will be keeping a good eye on your baby.

About 80% of babies are put under the lights for jaundice, some of them get a little worked up as it's a bit warm on one side of them and the other side is cool in comparision, so the smaller babies with less fat especially don't find it the most comfy, but for most babies they don't even really notice.

A lot of them are quiet at the start, being born is tiring! In the words of one of the nicu nurses 'they also take a bit of time to work out where their hands and feet are, they're just getting used to a whole new world and it takes a lot of effort'.

Everything always seems worse the first few days, I remember sobbing and sobbing on day 2 when they put my LO on a vent for the first time, you have loads of hormones rushing about, you're shattered, and this isn't how you imagined it would be. It does take time to adjust and become okay with the hand you've been dealt, and you'll still have days where you feel like you're falling apart and cry for no reason, but it's an emotional time, just try to be as involvwed as you can, I find the more hands on time I get (nappy changes, giving her a wash and oil in her incubator, and the cuddles which are the highlight of my day) the calmer I am, so jump at any chance to get involved and don't worry about his size, I've been handling Grace for nappy changes since she was 1lb 10oz, they're stronger than they look.

xxx

 

[dizz]

I also cuddled Erin for the one bit of skin-to-skin we ever got... and ended up wearing half her electrodes as a result... staff weren't concerned at the fact the readings suddenly started showing those of a 33 year old woman instead of a 33 weeker!

The bruises look awful (Erin's still got one on her hand that's only just healing now from a canula) but they do heal in time - and when they get a bit more alert and feisty... well she slapped the last doctor who came near her heels to do a blood test (inwardly I cheered her on!)

He's a cracking weight though - everyone comments how Erin was a good weight for a late 33 weeker at 4lb 15... so to break the 5lb barrier like that is pretty good going (and I admit I look at her and term babies and think that she hurt enough getting out let alone going to full term!)

The light box I'll admit I found utterly vile - it wasn't the light (although when they did it by my bedside after she left neo natal and made it onto the trans care ward and some insensitive battleaxe of a midwife left the room muttering about "that light blaring all night" I wanted to throttle her and insert the light box somewhere cos she needed it cos she was blooming ILL), it was the fact that they can feel very open and exposed with being naked under the lights and that can upset them... added to which the fact that Erin had pulled her goggles off ten times in five minutes to get the lid off the cot and a nice reassuring hand in there to hold her... in the end one of the staff took the lid off, and we worked out that with a hat holding the goggles in place, scratch mitts and regular temp checks and the ward being set to sauna levels anyway - her temperature stayed sufficient enough to not need the lid on the cot so I could reach over and reassure her easier (by this point I was beginning to think I'd given birth to a clear plastic box with a baby in it with cot lids and incubators and what-not).... we had a run where it looked like she was going to have to go back under for treatment as her levels rose and proceeded to dangle just below the treatment line - and I was fully prepared to insist they put her under on a heating pad (they have these water bed thingees) and not on a cot with a lid if she'd had to go under again - thankfully her levels fell off - although people keep saying she still looks slightly jaundiced now and there's a chance they'll have to look at it again at the end of this week... although I don't think she IS now (the whites of her eyes are clear) - her dad's got very olive toned skin and she's got his skin tone.

 

[toothfairyx]

Hey, congrats and welcome! I only seem to have time for fleeting visits these days but my second was transverse and had a bruised swollen arm which was a concern but all ok in the end which I'm sure will be the same for you. Have they done Doppler tests to check the blood flow ?