Maggie is off of the IV as of yesterday and is back in a crib. She is maintaining her temperature well and is up to full feeds (43ml). The overnight nurse gave Maggie her first bottle, so she is now working on three feedings by mouth.
She is still immature, so her full sucking reflex isn't fully developed, so it takes her a long time to get started and by the time she gets going feeding she isn't able to take much because she gets worn out. Last night it took her 15 minutes to collect herself and start feeding, once she did get going she took 9ml by bottle.
The nurse today suggested we start occupational therapy, which will help Maggie's oral stimulation before nursing or bottle feeding. Maggie's nurse said baby's typically do well with this stimulation. The bigger she gets and the more developmentally mature she will get the better she will do at her feedings.
We did the technique today and she latched on much faster and was able to go a little longer. We are going to do this for her at each feeding, even if it's a gavage feeding.
Maggie will get her Hep B vaccine today and I was given information about RSV and a special vaccine Maggie will recieve throughout cold and flu season. It's a series of shots she will receive once a month from November through March to help her immune system fight off any type of respiritory infection caused by a common cold during the long cold and flu season.
We learned last night that we will need to do lots of hand washing and hand sanitizing this winter and be very conservative about taking her out of the house. The last thing we want is for her to end up back in the hospital. The fun part will be teaching our 17 mo. old Cece about germs. We'll see how that goes.
No comments:
Post a Comment