March 4, 2009

All sorts of fun stuff happened today.

Cohen had a visit from the Physical Therapist today. She moved his arms and legs around and tested his muscle tone and a variety of other things. Overall she said he was right on target for his gestation, and was quite impressed at how alert he was. Towards the end of her visit she checked his sucking reflex and said he was quite advanced in that area and in the next week or two he could attempt breastfeeding. Little did she know that at Cohen’s noon cares he had done just that! He has been sucking on his pacifier like crazy and anything that is near his mouth he tries to suck on. He was so alert at Noon, and I had just pumped, so Kathy (shocking) decided to let him attempt to breastfeed! Without going into too much detail, let’s just suffice it to say that his mouth is a little too small at this point. He did really well with the nipple shield on (it makes it more like a pacifier), but it too was still very large for his tiny mouth. We tried again at 6pm and that time he got a few suckles in but they were nowhere near strong enough to really consider this a true breastfeeding session. It was great progress though, because even 34-35 weekers have problems breastfeeding. (Believe me I know….we had to strip Carter naked and wake him up with water to feed, and when that didn’t work we had to pinch his toes or cheeks! )

Also, Cohen should start to look less orange over the next week. His bilirubin is a 4.7 so it is coming back down. I learned an interesting tid bit about looking “yellow” (aka, orange in my book)…when the bili levels are around 2 is when Cohen will start to lose his yellow color. A woman would see the yellow start to fade at around 3 to 4, while a man would see a decrease in yellow at around 2. It all has to do with the rods and cones in our eyes. Interesting.

Cohen is down to 3lbs 14oz, not a huge loss, but a loss nonetheless. His little body burns more calories when he is regulating his own temperature, so if he continues to lose weight he will go back into the incubator. He did a great job with his temp today, so he is still in the big boy bed. The fleece outfit and 4 blankets did the trick!

On a final note, Cohen is being treated for Anemia of Prematurity. His Hemoglobin was right at the minimum level, so the new treatment is to prevent him from becoming full blown anemic. Premature babies become anemic sooner than full-term infants because they start out with fewer red blood cells. And many premature babies become anemic before their body can make red blood cells. Cohen will be given a new drug to stimulate the making of red blood cells in his kidneys to prevent him from becoming anemic.

All in all it was a great day! (Oh, and how about a little prayer for John and his math test tomorrow!)