Friday, 13 August 2010

13th August

Unfortunately not a great day today...

Briony has lost 10g so is back down at 960g. I overhead the Consultant ward round this morning where her weight gain was described as "rubbish". Very medical term clearly! This will be the last day that they will leave her on 1/4 formula. If there is no weight gain tomorrow she will be on 1/2 formula, 1/2 fortified breast milk.

To help Briony conserve energy and grow they have whacked up her breathing support. She has been increased from 2.5 litres to 3.5 litres and her oxygen has gone from 25% to 30%.

She has been breathing very fast (at over 100 respirations a minute - it should be around 20-60) and the doctors think she may also have picked up an infection. To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised as nearly every other baby in there seems to have an infection at the moment. They plan to do an X-ray of her chest to have a look and also some blood tests and cultures to try and work out what is going on with her. It looks like she will need to have an IV line put back in to give her some antibiotics.

She also looks quite pale, so they are checking her haemoglobin, which has been borderline for the last couple of days. If it low, she will need a blood transfusion. She did look a little pale to me and her hands were also quite a bit colder than they have been previously.

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