Balancing Their Diets

Rebecca was swaddled in a blanket today to see if she was able to maintain her body heat without getting heat from the isolette. She has done extremely well. This is a step in the direction of her graduating out of isolette!! They are bumping up her breast milk calories to 24 and she has been tolerating her feeds very well. My mom and I went a parent meeting at Children's Hospital. There you get to meet other parents with infants in the NICU, get information about different services they offer, ask any questions you may have, eat pizza, and play games. We got to play Baby Bingo and between mom and I we took home 10 prizes.
Well it was just a matter of time but Joanna got her first belly ache today and her daddy got rid of his finally. When I got the call from her drs this morning, they said that overnight her belly began to become distended at each assessment and was tender to the touch. She also wasn't acting herself and looked pale. There was one assessment early this morning that she had 4 ml of food that was partially digested (she should only have a trace of partially digested food between feedings). Based on all of this they decided to stop feeding her today to let her belly settle. They also took blood cultures to see if they would grow any infections, started her on antibiotics just in case she was getting an infection, and ordered an xray to see if she was beginning to show signs of NEC. NEC, necrotizing enterocolitis, an intestinal infection unique to preemies and usually comes on between 10 and 14 days of life. As the day went on she began to act like she felt better. Another xray was done at 6pm and it did not show anything that should be concerning. They will evaluate her again tomorrow morning to see if the will again hold her feedings. Rebecca's echo showed no change since the last one.