Pulmonary Hypertension

Brenda called today after rounds and told us that Jordyn has Pulmonary Hypertension.  It's a common thing with preemies who have Chronic Lung Disease and so it's something that they watch for.  It explains a little of why Jordyn swings so much and why she has had a hard time being weaned off her oxygen.  Pulmonary Hypertension is high blood pressure in the pulmonary artery in the lungs.  They won't be able to treat it until their eyes are fully matured.  After it is treated and goes away it won't effect her anymore.  Once their eyes are cleared they can turn Jordyn's oxygen up to 100% and that should clear up the pulmonary hypertension.

The girls have been getting their eyes checked regularly for the last few weeks.  The doctors are checking for retinopathy of prematurity or ROP which is a problem that affects premature babies.  The blood vessels in the eyes don't grow as well and so there is sometimes scarring and retinal detachment.  ROP can be mild and not affect the baby but some cases require surgery to correct.  There are 4 Stages of ROP.  They don't consider surgery until the baby has gotten to the 4th stage.  Thankfully Jordyn is stage 1.5 and Addi is stage 2.  We are hoping they will mature quickly and not get any worse.  They are both in Zone 2 for maturity.  There are 3 zones and so they are almost there and then won't need their eyes checked again until their follow up appointments.

Brenda also talked to me about Addi and how she really isn't doing as good as we would like.  She has been breastfeeding for a while now and she really should be doing better than she is.  Brenda suggested breastfeeding her for 20 minutes and see what she gets, then top off the rest with a bottle.  That way she is working for the whole feeding and not just getting some from me and the rest being fed through her tube.  I started it this afternoon and she loved her bottle.  She grabbed on and downed the whole thing really quickly!  They usually like their bottles better because they don't have to work as hard to get the milk out.