Preterm birth

[theatokos]

I found this segment on preterm birth. It's well done and talks about some of the issues at play, as well as shows you inside a NICU. To put my experience in perspective, this NICU is nicer than mine at Kaiser Oakland. The babies in this segment are also on the healthy end of things. While in the NICU I saw, more often than not, very sick babies. At one point in my month in the NICU Kaiser Oakland had a shortage of bed spaces and was turning people away AND the mean age (not average) of the babies there was 25 weeks.

At the beginning of the segment the March of Dimes lady says that about half of all preterm births are mysteries - no one knows exactly why it occurs. I fell into this category. Benn, miraculously, does not have a single structural or developmental issue, other than being small and low on body fat.

[cross posted to July DDCs]

Comments

[msmidge.livejournal.com]

Sam's preterm birth was in the mysterious category too. He seems fine too, almost 2 years later--prone to respiratory illnesses, but so's his father. The NICU nurses speculated that undiagnosed gestational diabetes could have had something to do with it, but they were nice enough to say I couldn't have done anything differently.

[ewigweibliche.livejournal.com]

How early was Sam? Was he especially small to begin with? And when did he catch up size-wise? Our pediatrician said today that she is sure Benn will catch up in size by 6 months. It's hard to imagine that happening! I almost dread the amount of breast feeding that is going to have to happen to make that so...

[msmidge.livejournal.com]

He was born at 36.5 weeks, which is only a few days shy of being full term, but then the dr/nurses in the NICU were speculating that maybe our dates were wrong and he was really more like 34-35 weeks because he couldn't eat. They had the idea about gestational diabetes because he was 6 lbs 4 oz when he was born--normal for a full term baby, or big for an early baby, but gestational diabetes babies run big...does this make sense? I am so tired! The kid is sick and wouldn't take a nap today and STILL hasn't gone to sleep for the night, at almost midnight!

As for catching up in size...we've never had the doctors telling us he was too small. He was a really skinny newborn but by 3 months he chunked up. It did seem like constant nursing. At least I didn't have to pump too.

Since he was about one year old (maybe earlier?), he's stayed in about the 3rd percentile for weight, but 50th-75th or so for height and head size. I guess as long as the percentiles seem stable over time, it's not a big deal. But it also depends on the doctor...my friend's daughter is also small and when the child was one, her now EX-pediatrician insisted that she stop nursing and go on a diet of heavy cream to gain weight, because she was so small she wasn't even on the chart. But her current doctor (who we also see) figures she's just a small kid and if she's otherwise healthy and developmentally on target, what's the big deal?