Julia's Baby

When I arrived the youngest and smallest baby in the NICU was Julia’s baby. He was born early at 22-24 wga due to placental abruption. He weighed 600 grams at birth. By the time I arrived he was slowly but surely gaining weight. He was still on oxygen. We given Aminophylin here to stimulate respiratory drive (in the states they use caffeine). He was transitioning from IVF to NG tube feeds. I continued to advance his daily intake until he was taking in 180 kcal/kg/day. He was gaining weight at a slow but appropriate rate (goal is 15-30 g/d). He was the smallest baby that Kapsowar had every cared for and managed to keep alive. Even for the states he’s a miracle. After 3+ weeks he was at 810 grams on Wednesday. Then in the morning he aspirated and stopped breathing. They resuscitated him and he started breathing again. He stopped breathing to more times around midday. And then 2-3 more times that evening. Finally the nurses called the on call doc at 8:30p that he’d stopped breathing for 2-3 minutes. He ran to the hospital. They coded the child, gave chest compressions, rescue breaths and iv epi, but never the less he passed. It was a great loss for his mother. She’d been expressing breast milk every two hours for weeks and feeding him through his NGT, every patient and hopeful. Please pray for her healing.