April 10, 2010

Baby Update

We had a freak episode last Saturday, April 3rd... where our baby boy choked on some vitamin drops. The medicine went in too fast and he did not like that! We ran to the ER to get him checked out. They did an x-ray to make sure nothing had gotten in to his lungs and made sure his blood work was normal. We were admitted to the pediatric department. The standard protocol for such incidents in the hospital is to monitor for apnea which includes monitoring heart rate, respiration and oxygen saturation and looking for any symptoms of pneumonia. He was put on a antibiotics as a preemptive measure in case there was any airway infection.

He was also put on a four-channel 12 hour test. This test was performed by the neonatology department. He was put on heartbeat, respiration, oxygen saturation and breathing (two probes under nostrils) monitors. They analyzed the data and concluded there were no apnea incidents during the test.

All the other test results came back normal. However, because this was a choking episode the standard protocol of the hospital is to send such newborns with Apnea Monitor. He will be on the monitor for a month. There are two probes on his chest under a soft belt which records heartbeat and respiration data in a unit. If heartbeat or respiration goes below a threshold, a loud alarm will sound (believe me this sound is very loud). After a month, we go back to Apnea center in the hospital where they will download this data and see if there were any incidents of apnea.

So far our son is doing extremely well!!!

3 comments:

  1. Oh my! How scary! I'm glad he's doing well though. My goodness.

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  2. So scary! I had to read your post to my husband just to put what we're dealing with in perspective. I'm glad that he's doing well now.

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