Big Belly Baby!
Elizabeth is doing well, the only concern her doctors have right now is the size of her belly. The CPAP machine blows air into her lungs and some of the air is swallowed causing her belly to get very big. Right now it is soft with good bowel sounds, which is what we want. A major concern for all preemies is NEC, an infection of the intestines which can be very serious. The nurses and doctors are very vigilant checking for any signs of NEC in order to treat it as soon as possible. Right now her belly is just full of air, but they are keeping an extra close eye on her. Last night her belly got really big, they cut her feeds down by half and “helped” her to stool. After a few hours it looked a little smaller, but her doctor ordered an x-ray just to be careful. As she suspected, Elizabeth’s belly was full of air with no sign of anything bad. Elizabeth just has to work the air out of her system. She was also put back to full feeds. To help her belly and give Elizabeth a challenge, she is going to go back on her nasal canula for 3 hours twice a day! We will be praying that she tolerates her time on the canula better and can keep advancing her time off CPAP. She did awesome today with an oxygen requirement down to 25% for part of the time (21% is room air)!
Elizabeth’s weight is up to almost 2 lbs 2 oz. She had lost some weight due to some diuretics that she was put on, but seems to have gain most of the weight back quickly.
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