after eric’s neonatologist’s consulted with pediatric surgeons this morning about his hiatal hernia and possible nissen surgeries, they’ve decided to hold off making any decisions to see if non-surgical management will help improve the reflux. while that’s great news, they’ve also decided to delay his inguinal hernia surgery so they can do it when and if they decide non-surgical methods are no lnoger working to control the reflux at which point they’ll do everything at once. since his neonatologist last night said that they had already had a hunch that he’d need the surgeries eventually, but that the pediatric surgeons didn’t like to do them before a baby weights 2,500 grams, i’m guessing that from their perspective we’re playing a waiting game – they wait for him to hit 2,500 grams, while letting us try less invasive treatments in hopes that something might work.
to that end, they finally gave orders to start supplementing his feedings with barley which helps to thicken them and will hopefully help to keep the food in his stomach where it belongs. remarkably, after we added the barley, he almost completely stopped spitting up his food! even more importantly his blood oxygen levels remained stable after eating, which means there’s less reflux in his esophagus stimulating the nerves that initiate the cascade of events that lead to an apnea. he’s still showing signs of reflux, such as pursing his lips and making chewing motions with his mouth, but he responded quite well to the barley and appears to be much more stable; in fact, he hasn’t had any alarms in over 24 hours! whooohoo!
sometimes after adding barley to the milk, micropreemies have a more difficult time drinking their bottle, but eric doesn’t seem to mind at all and drinks it as quickly as ever.
do the remarkable results of adding a little barley to his feedings mean that he won’t need surgery? it might and it might not, depending on the results of additional upper GI series ( we don’t have any sceduled yet ). it’s possible that the barley is helping to make eric more stable, while masking esophageal damage that will gradually result in feeding problems, which we certainly would like to avoid. but the barley might, just possibly might, help to stabilize eric enough to allow us to bring him home while he gains weight and we to see if he really does need surgery or if things will gradually get better as eric matures. eric’s neonatologist said that he would let him come home with an unrepaired inguinal hernia, as long as everything else was under control. i’m guessing that if we see two or three days of no alarms and no significant “desats” after feeding, we might be talking about going home sooner rather than later – not that we’ll ever tell him that, mind you.
so, while we wait, wondering if little odin will be coming home in one week or six, life in the nicu hums along; today, eric actively grasped and held his paci for the first time ( motor coordination! ); we gave him a bath and got a great tip from a nurse about how draping eric in a wet cloth diaper will give him a “bundled” feeling, making baths a lot less stressful. micropreemies often will get agitated when they lack the boundaries that were familiar when they were in the womb. he loved it. if we removed the diaper he’d start to fuss, but as soon as draped him in the diaper, he calmed down quickly.
he’s hungry, so he decides to suck on the web diaper that we’ve draped over him
and we brought in a mobile that will supposedly encourage his development and vision. i don’t know if the claims are about stimulating development are true, but it seems like a good idea to have something familiar around when we finally get to go home.
