Claire's First Day

After her most exciting entry into the world, Claire got transferred to the University Hospital NICU. She is pictured here with her little nasal cpap in her isolette. To help you follow, if you are not medically inclined, Claire was born 9 1/2 weeks early which puts her at risk for a few things. The most important concern is her lungs, babies don't develop well working lungs with surfactant until 8 weeks before birth. The cpap was used to help keep her lungs expanded. Our little princess never needed any oxygen so there was just room air flowing. Sometimes, babies her age and younger require a breathing tube or even some exogenous surfactant to be given; we were lucky Claire needed neither and she was off her CPAP the night after she was born.

She is in an isolette because it takes lots of energy to maintain your body temperature and Claire needs to use all of her calories to gain weight. She actually is doing most of that by herself, too. They are able to keep her isolette temperature low. Once she starts gaining weight and doing an even better job of controling her temperature, she will be moved to an open crib.

Claire has an IV because she was not able to eat right after birth. Premature babies' tummies are often not ready to digest food so she was given sugar through her vein overnight. They put an OG (oral-gastric) tube to start feeding her the next morning. They start just a little at a time to make sure she is ready. So far she seems to like it.