r/NICUParents

What are you taking (if anything) to help grow your milk supply with a NICU baby? Or any tips and tricks? Our team said nothing with fenugreek. I sleep with our babies used linens. Hydrating, etc.

My newborn will be 1 week old tomorrow and is still in the NICU. She was born at 37 weeks exactly and initially needed CPAP support. Thankfully she’s off CPAP now and doing great in every other aspect.
The only thing keeping her in the NICU is bottle feeding.
Since she was fed through a feeding tube while on CPAP, she seems to have gotten used to that and now struggles with the bottle. She’ll usually take about 15–20 mL from the bottle, but then gets tired/lazy and won’t finish. She needs to be taking 60 mL per feeding, so they end up giving the rest of her feed through her feeding tube.

I’m just so ready to bring my baby home and this last hurdle has been really hard.

Has anyone else gone through this with their NICU baby? Did anything help your them learn to take full bottles or build up the stamina to finish feeds? How long did it take before it finally “clicked”?
I’d love to hear any advice, tips, or success stories. Thank you so much in advance. ❤️

My daughter was recently born at 30w6d due to preeclampsia and fetal distress. Once born it was discovered she had IUGR as well and was born weighing only 1,066 grams. Otherwise she's doing well with CPAP on room air, tolerating feeds well so far and has a line in her umbilical. She's had a few low blood sugars and mildly elevated bilirubin and they have her under a light and she's already doing better. However she has been losing weight.

It's only been 72 hours since her birth and she's already lost 10% of her birth weight, down to 960 grams. They're going to start fortifying her breast milk tomorrow and she has been tolerating feeds well. I know it's normal for her to lose weight in the first few days and the NICU team doesn't seem concerned yet but she's just so TINY, and it has me worried that she's just never going to gain weight and she's just going to waste away.

When should I be worried about her weight? I know there are lots of success stories for babies like mine and I know we're incredibly lucky for her to be doing as well as she is otherwise, but has anyone experienced their IUGR baby fail to gain weight?

A friend of mine just gave birth to a premie. I'm thinking of sending her a care package with some premie clothes, baby oil and a few essentials. Is there anything more I should include?

(She is getting a ton of chocolate) Edit: we're not in the us and I have to mail it to her ❤️

So I have twin girls Eden and Bella, they were born at 29 weeks April 17th. They were in the NICU for roughly two months before being discharged. However on discharge we were told they were going to have to be on oxygen and pulse readers.quite frankly I found it ridiculous. You want to send two babies who breathe relatively well on their own with no tachycardia or brachacardia episodes. With all these wires and machines. Tell us that they have lung disease. But on multiple occasions I caught my girls completely off there oxygen whether it be there cannulas were off. Or it was completely disconnected from the oxygen wall. Has anybody else dealt with this sort of thing? If so how did you go at it?.

My son was born at 25+6 and is now 35 weeks. He’s been intubated his whole life. He had a pda closure 5 days ago and over the last 2 days, his oxygen has increased from 40 to 75% with no clear explanation so kinda expecting pulmonary hypertension, which he did not have prior to pda closure. He has an echo tomorrow.

I was so hoping he would be extubated after this closure and now this. It’s looking like he’ll never get extubated and I’m so upset.

We are no longer in the NICU, but I know all preemies are given iron so I imagine others have had this issue. How did you manage baby pooping while getting necessary iron supplementation? Baby is 6 months, 4 months adjusted, and will simply not poop anymore. At the moment it’s been a week. I trialed stopping the iron for 2 weeks and he started pooping everyday again, and once I started him back on iron he stopped pooping. Pediatrician wasn’t overly helpful, basically gave suggestions for when we start solids but we aren’t there yet, and didn’t have any solutions for right now. Baby is EBF. We do belly massage, bicycle legs, warm baths which help relieve gas, but usually to actually get him actually poop we need to use a suppository.

Hi everyone,

Ftm here My baby girl was born late preterm at 35 weeks + 4 days, with a birth weight of 2 kg (4.4 lbs).

She is now 56 days old (8 weeks), and at her recent check-up she weighed 3.7 kg (8.2 lbs), so she's been gaining weight well according to her pediatrician.

I've noticed that her thighs have become chubbier and her face is much rounder, which is reassuring. However, her arms still look quite lean, especially compared to full-term babies of a similar age.

For parents of late preterm babies:

- When did your baby start looking a bit "filled out" overall?

- How long did it take for their arms and upper body to become less lean?

- Did they gradually catch up over the first few months, or did it take longer?

I know every baby grows at their own pace, and I'm not looking for medical advice—I'm just hoping to hear about other parents' experiences. Thank you!

Wife noticed she was leaking a little yesterday. We went to the hospital and they said we were PProm. Today we are at 33+6. They want to potentially induce or do a c section tomorrow evening.

This is our first baby and it's been really rough thus far. We had a IUGR that resolved a few weeks back among other things.

Any chance we can go longer than 34 weeks now that she's being monitored? Any long term outcomes regarding neurological delays? Positive and negative are welcome

My LO was born at 34 weeks, now 38 weeks. We just got home from the NICU last week.

she gets the polyvisol, and I do the drop with a small amount of breast milk and then give her the rest of her bottle (we offer 60mL). over the last few days I notice she takes around 10mL less than normal for the total feed when she has the polyvisol. Then for the rest of the day she’s fine with her bottles.

anyone else had that it bothers their LO’s stomach or makes them more full?

i also only give her .5mL, I have to check with the pediatrician tomorrow when they open because they never told me the dosage I’m supposed to use!

My 26 weeker now 35 weeks was stable and gaining weight beautifully however his desats came back and now he is back in oxygen.Xray is good,blood report is good.Iam overwhelmed and dont kniw what to do.

Talk of discharge in the next few days, is there anything we should do or know that will make the transition easier? Any advice or must-haves, any routines or hacks? I simultaneously feel as prepared as I could ever be and also like I’m not ready at all.

​Hi everyone,

​I’m looking for some advice, shared experiences, or just a bit of reassurance regarding my 2-month-old baby.

​Recently, we noticed that when our baby cries, the lower lip on one side doesn't pull down, resulting in an asymmetrical facial expression. However, when the baby is resting or sleeping, the face is perfectly symmetrical, and both eyes close tightly without any issues when crying. Based on this, it seems to align perfectly with Asymmetric Crying Facies (ACF) caused by congenital missing/hypoplasia of the depressor anguli oris muscle, rather than a facial nerve palsy.

​In addition to this, our baby was also diagnosed with Hydronephrosis on ultrasound and is currently on daily prophylactic antibiotics to prevent UTIs.

​Because both the facial muscles and the kidneys originate from the mesoderm during embryonic development, I've been reading a lot about potential genetic links. My biggest concern right now is the possibility of 22q11.2 microdeletion syndrome (like Cayler cardiofacial syndrome) or other genetic anomalies since these two structural issues are presenting together.

​We are planning to discuss genetic testing (like a chromosomal microarray) with our pediatrician soon, but as a parent, the waiting and the "what ifs" are extremely stressful.

​My questions for this community:

​Has anyone here had a child with both ACF and Hydronephrosis (or other kidney/urinary issues)?

​If your child had ACF (isolated or with other anomalies), did you pursue genetic testing? What were the results?

​For those whose kids have ACF, how are they doing now as they grow up?

So I’m 14 weeks pregnant and last week my nipt result came back Abnormal NIPT on sex chromosome suggestive of possible mosiacism I talk to a genetic counselor an it’s a lot of different possibilities also maybe something from my placenta that it picked up on or my dna and baby may just be fine but can’t say right now until driver testing is done I got my blood drawn to do chromosomes in my body to see if it’s something in my dna I’m jus scared because last year I lost my baby at 17 week the cause is still unknown but I have to do ultrasound every two weeks until I’m 24 weeks to monitor baby and cervix but has anyone experienced this and it turned out to be Normal and the pregnancy and baby was fine just need some word of advice anyone

My triplets have only been attempting to eat out of a bottle for 2 days now.. they were born at 31 weeks and 1 day.. now they are 34 weeks and 3 days.. the nurse who taught us how to feed them was very gentle and told us to hold them on their side and and rub the bottle on their lips and wait for them to open their mouth.. she said to hold the bottle horizontal so the milk wasn’t fully in the nipple.. and she said its best for them to be very awake and alert to take the bottle.. today we had an older nurse who hovered over us the entire time we were feeding and basically pried one of my babies mouths open repeatedly to try to force the bottle in her mouth and kept taking the bottle from me and shoving it in her mouth.. she also told me to hold the bottle upwards so all of the milk was in the nipple.. it was basically the complete opposite of what the first nurse taught us.. my other baby was completely asleep and she did the same thing to her while she was sleeping.. It looked so aggressive and I was so upset I started crying.. she seemed so taken aback that I was upset.. I obviously want them to start eating from the bottle.. but this just looked so aggressive.. and I’m sure that was how she was taught back in the day.. but, I didn’t like it at all… has this happened to anyone else?? Which way is correct? I told the charge nurse I’d like her to never be our babies nurse again..