Brady was born on 2/28/12 at 5:41 p.m. He was 22 inches long and was 11 lbs. and 9 oz. When Brady was born, he wasn't breathing and didn't have a heartbeat. It took doctors and nurses about four minutes to resuscitate him.
Ali is a Type 1 Diabetic. One of the byproducts of diabetes is larger babies. At our 36 month ultrasound the baby was estimated to be almost 9 pounds. They say babies gain about .5 pounds for those last weeks, so we knew we were having a big baby. We scheduled a C-Section for Friday, March 2.
For the past several months we have had a biophysical ultrasound test every Tuesday and Friday (common practice for diabetic mothers). The baby was very active in Ali's womb and always did very well with his tests. The tests came back with perfect results on Friday, 2/24. When we went in on Tuesday, 2/28, the baby didn't have enough blood flow from the placenta through his umbilical cord and wasn't moving the way that he should. The doctors decided we need to do a C-Section right away.
When Brady was born he wasn't breathing and had no heartbeat. It took them about four minutes to bring him back to life. The doctors and nurses immediately moved him to the NICU unit at Fairview Ridges. He was very sick during the first few hours.
It was determined that he had ingested meconium into his lungs. They worked hard to try to clean his lungs and assisted his breathing with a ventilator. He started on a high frequency oscillator. Over time in the hospital, he moved to a conventional ventilator, then to a high flow nasal cannula and then to a low flow nasal cannula. After a few weeks, he was removed completely from breathing assistance.
His blood also wasn't clotting the way that it should (usually tied to liver concerns). They gave him several transfusions to help with the clotting. His liver seemed to heal well over a couple of weeks.
Normal blood sugar is 70-100. He was born with a blood sugar of 9. He was given some sugars and then jumped immediately to about 250. They then started giving him some insulin to bring him down into the normal range. His blood sugars are now stable.
His blood pressure was also very high at the beginning. They started giving him a few different medicines to help him regulate that. After a few days they removed one machine. His blood pressure is now stable.
When he was born his kidneys weren't functioning properly. They now seem to be fully healed.
The biggest concern for babies with lack of oxygen and blood is brain development. Immediately after his birth, they did some initial testing of Brady and rated him with moderate concerns (on a scale of mild, moderate or severe). He was able to grasp my hand and showed some reactions.
Brady was transferred to the U of M Amplatz Children's Hospital about 4 hours after he was born. They think he had a seizure during the transport, but they don't think he's had one since. They did an initial ultrasound of his brain and there wasn't any hemorrhaging.
Amplatz is able to do Hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) treatment. For HIE treatment Brady was placed on a cooling unit. His body temperature was kept around 90 degrees for three days. They then slowly warmed his body up to allow him to heal. This treatment is also called therapeutic hypothermia.
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