Moving to the NICU

Nicole (right) was the NICU nurse assigned to take care of Cambria. Jackie was assigned to take care of Aegean. They were both great, explaining everything they did. Nicole put an oxygen sensor on Cambria's foot, temperature and breathing rate sensors on her torso. She put a feeding in her nose that went down to her stomach. Cambria also got an IV in her arm like adults get.

Aegean had mild respiratory distress syndrome. The doctor thought continuous positive airway pressure would alleviate the problems. They put a nasal prong in his nose with a flow rate of 3 SLPM. His feeding tube needed to go into his mouth. The feeding tube was even more important because the nasal prong pushed some gas into his stomach.

In addition, he needed more samples for blood gas to ensure he had a high enough gas transfer rate in his lungs. Dr. Mah put an umbilical arterial catheter into his stomach to get the samples. He also put the IV in the umbilical vein for feeding. There are no nerves in the umbilical cord. This allowed Dr. Mah to put the arterial catheter and IV very close to the heart. Correct placement of the arterial catheter and IV were verified using x-ray.

Aegean continued to retract (heavy pulling by his lungs). This was probably due to less surfactant production, which is the main cause of lung problems with premies. Aegean was given Curosurf, an artificial surfactant to help his lungs develop more quickly. A tube was placed in his trachea, where Curosurf was pushed in through a syringe. Aegean sucked it up immediately. His retraction improved throughout the day.