Devin Downey

Status:

21 Days Old

32 Weeks and 5 days

Devin is doing very well.  The doctors and staff tell us that most preemies go home around their due date; so we are counting down till April 28th.  Preemies can go home when they can hold their own temperature in an open crib, take all food from the breast or bottle and gaining weight, and have no Apnea (stop breathing) or Bradys (heart beat slows) for 5 days.  How does Devin stack up?

The first criteria for an open crib is greater than 1800 grams.  He weighs in at a whopping 2020 grams (~4.7 lbs) at last count.  No worry about the car seat now he'll be 5 pound easily by the time he goes home.  His primary nurse, Kelsey, raised the roof on his isolette and he is now living in open air and doing well.  If he continues to keep his temperature up and gain weight he'll be in a crib soon.

Currently he is taking his food (pumped breast milk) through a tube into his stomach.  Preemies don't really develop the suck, swallow, breath reflex until 34 weeks.  If you give Devin a pacifier you can see that he as the suck reflex but then forgets to breath.  The coordination isn't there yet.  The lactation nurse and I will start working on dry feeding with him to get him ready to breast feed and bottle feed in the next couple of weeks.  To make sure that he gets plump fast they put formula into the milk to up the calorie content, plus they add vitamins and iron.  He should be gaining baby fat quickly.

A's and B's are harder.  All preemies have them and they are thought to be the cause of most SID occurrences.  His brain stem and brain function just have to mature.  Most A's and B's they just come out of themselves but every once and a while the nurse will have to rub his back to remind him to breath.  The research shows that 5 days without any A's and B's that they will be good to go.  This is just a waiting game.

Interestingly enough breathing is a side note to when they get to go home.  Devin was taking off of his breathing mask, CPAP, and put on a high flow nose tube thing (yes it has a better name I just forget it).  You can see from the pictures that he is much more handsome and happier on the high flow.  He had tried this before but had issues when his PICC line that was giving him intravenous food was in the wrong place and caused a fluid build up.  This set him back a couple of days.  But we hope that this time with no PIC and no IV that he'll do OK on the high flow.

All in all Devin is being a brave little man and improving and growing better than we could have hoped. We get to hold him once or twice a day depending on his mood.  We jump at any chance to hold him - we miss being able to do "normal" parent stuff and the small moments we have with him are cherished.  

The Rueckert Grandparents were out last week and helped a lot with getting the nursery jump started with a crib and mattress, glider, and numerous chores.  The Downey Grandparents are coming next week.  Devin was so excited to meet his grandparents!