Breathing and Bathing

Before we came in, James was off of his CPAP and breathing regular air for about 45 minutes to an hour today -- go, James! (His nurse took some very cute pictures of him without all his facegear on.) Maybe that means he's ready for some cannula time, like his brother.

No decision yet on when they're trying feeding again; they took another X-ray, and it's still not quite normal. It might be that some of the extra fluid he'd been retaining is also affecting how his intestines look, so they're going to do another X-ray in a couple of days. Meanwhile, he did lose weight last night, which is what we wanted to see, and they gave him another dose of the diuretic, so he'll hopefully get rid of even more fluid over the course of today and tonight.

When they do start feeding, they're also going to give him some probiotics, bacteria that are supposed to aid in digestion. Having him on antibiotics for so long kills off the bad stuff, but also kills off the good stuff that's supposed to be living in the intestine. Probiotics are still a bit experimental with preemies, but the initial trials have shown some promising results in reducing the incidence and severity of NEC.

We got to give Matthew a bath today. He did not seem to especially enjoy it! (And boy, wet babies sure are slippery!) But it was fun to do something new, and he was happy again when we put him into his nice cozy puppy-dog jammies.

Mattie also had another renal ultrasound; they're still trying to track down the cause of his high blood pressure. The ultrasound tech said that he had some poop coming, and later, when Mike was changing the diaper, our nurse translated that as "he's full of it." Am I a bad mother if I say that this probably isn't the last time someone will say that about him? :)