Off The CPAP

The nurse called Megan and I this morning to tell us that they took Kayley off the CPAP and put her on the nasal prongs around 10 am this morning. They started her off on very low settings. Her flow (liters per minute) was set to .5 and her oxygen was set to 25%. If Kayley started to labor a bit to breathe, they had the option of turning up the settings before deciding to put her back on CPAP. But, she did very well. However, after about an hour being off the CPAP, Kayley had apnea (forgot to breathe for a bit) and then brady'd (medical term = bradycardia). That means her heart slowed down. It reached about70 beats per minute. Her normal is between 130 and 170. She recovered very quickly which is good. The nurse called the doctor and he increased her caffeine dose based on her weight. Prior to this, Kayley was on the same dose as was calculated for her birth weight. The apnea stopped after that.

By the time Megan got to the hospital, Kayley's settings were changed. Her flow was turned up to 1.0 lpm and her oxygen was down to 21%. Like I said before, these are very low settings. The nurse told us tonight that a lot of the babies start around 3 lpm. While Megan was holding her, she did great...yet again. Her stats stayed high the whole time.

When Mitch and I arrived tonight, the nurse told us that Kayley brady'd again shortly before we got there. Again, she recovered quickly. Then right after I started holding her, she brady'd again. After this time, her heart rate returned to normal but she seemed to being working pretty hard to breathe. A couple minutes passed with the three of us intensely watching Kayley. Finally, she settled down and her breathing became normal. That was very stressful. The nurse and I decided that maybe my Kayley holding tonight wouldn't be very long so we could get Kayley all swaddled up and comfortable again in her bed. But, Kayley had other ideas. She snuggled right up and fell fast asleep. Her stats stayed great the rest of the time and she was very comfortable. Since Kayley has recovered from these episodes by herself and rather quickly, this will just be something they will monitor.

The nurse had some more not so great news for us tonight. Kayley had a little blood in her stool when she changed her. She called the doctor and the doctor was not worried about it at all. It was such a little amount that she believes Kayley may just have a small tear "down there." The nurse saved her diaper to show us. So, after holding Kayley, Mitch and I looked at Kayley's poop. After the two hours of the diaper sitting there, the blood disappeared so we couldn't see it (just a tip, when looking for something in a poopy diaper, don't put your face closer to get a better look). It was so little that it was just absorbed into the poop. The nurse told us it's nothing to worry about at this point because they believe it is just a tear, but it's good for us to know.

The last update today is that Kayley will be sporting a new ankle bracelet when we get in tomorrow. They keep the security at this hospital pretty tight for newborns. Since Kayley is off the ventilator and CPAP, she gets the bracelet so if someone takes her too close to one of the doors, alarms will go off. I guess they think that when she's on the ventilator or CPAP, it would be too cumbersome for someone to take her. It's pretty crazy to think that someone would take your baby, but obviously we'd rather be safe.