Day 40

Day 40

Jackson Day 40: 1185 grams or 2 lbs 10 oz. Another half ounce weight gain! He continues to do great with the extra calories and protein added to the milk. Today they are increasing his milk from 22 cc to 23 cc and adding vitamins. Often preemies who are breast fed become iron deficient and the vitamins will help with that. Dr. Berger is cutting his steroid dose in half again tomorrow, down to .045 milligrams twice a day for 3 days. This will be his last round of steroids. They have weaned his 'breaths' per minute to 25. They are going to continue to wean him today and tonight with hopes of getting him on a regular high flow nasal cannula tomorrow. This type of cannula is much less irritating for him, so it will be nice once he's off the CPAP cannula. This is also a step he needs to make before hopefully being able to try bottle feeding at 34 weeks (next week). He is much more alert while eating and still loves his binky, all good signs for transitioning to a bottle. He has a hernia in his groin. This was likely caused by all his fussing. Last night he was especially mad. This is very common in preemies. He will have to have surgery to fix this but not until after he is out of the NICU. Dr. Berger told us it is minor and not anything to worry about. Just one more little hurdle for our little guy. FOJSP!