premature baby in neo-natal (sensitive)

[gazpachodragon]

hope this is the right place for this...

my nephew has been born early (due date is christmas day, he was born early hours tuesday morning) and he's having trouble with his breathing.

i'm not a mum yet, so have no experience of what happens in childbirth/pregnancy etc. but i was wondering if anyone could tell me how commonplace it was that they've put him on a ventilator. obviously the hospital won't tell us how serious it actually is, only to focus on getting him through each hour.

is it a precautionary measure, or should we be preparing ourselves for the worst?

just had a little count and he was about 5 weeks early? ds was born at 8 weeks prem and was ventilated a little bit. it is fairly common i think tbh, and sometimes they give them CPAP which is similar to ventilation and looks the same but is actually to help them when they are tired as it's quite tough when they breathe out to make sure the lungs can inflate back up again iyswim?

best thing is for parents to just see the paeds every morning, as they will be able to give the best updates. they are realistic too, not scaremongering, or overly optimistic. tbh if you "should be preparing yourselves for the worst" the paeds will tell you, in my experience (dc2 due in may have been told to prepare for 30 week delivery and have been told for some time now, not great example but hope it helps)

don't know if this helps at all and i'm sure there will be lots more much better replies if you see?

when babies are born prem the first and last thing they will suffer with is their breathing. their lungs are the last thing to develop. Sometimes if it is known that a baby will be delivered early they give steroids to mature the lungs.

The little lo might just need to stay on the vent for a little while only. As jacob said, they will tell the parents if the worst is feared, but prem babies on ventilators is a common thing. Good luck for them all.

obviously the hospital won't tell us how serious it actually is,

Try not to worry, they will tell you exactly what is going on, they wont hide things from the parents, they are very good at what they do, so try not to worry to much

thanks everyone. he was on cpap, but was still struggling so they've upped him to ventilation. i'm really reassured that you're saying it's relatively 'normal'. i guess that's all we want, a little reassurance that other people have gone through it and come out okay. unfortunately the parents aren't coping too well with it, so we're not getting the information properly if you see what i mean...

They will settle down. Once they accept that the lo is in neonatal then they will concentrate on getting him better and the information will sink in.
The staff there will be the best people to help them and they will make sure that they understand everything.

my dd2 was 3 months prem and ventilated at birth. Ventialtion is very common and ime a lot of the time allows the baby to rest and recover whilst the machine does the breathing for them. I won't pretend it isn't hard - i was gutted that she had to be on the vent - but if it's any consolation she's a happy healthy 20 month old now - and all the other babies in neo-natal with her who were ventilated all came through a well. Best wishes to your family - it's a tough time.

dd was ventilated at birth depite being a 42 weeker. It was just to help her breath cos of all the drugs given to stop her seizing.
All the preemies in the same NICU were all on vents.
The paeds usually talk to the parents every morning but if they are worried they can always ask to see someone. I think I bothered them for every scarp for info for the 2 weeks she was ventilatedand generally they were great.

it's very common for prem babies to be ventilated. My ds was due on 1st december last year and was born on 22 october so 6 weeks early. He was also very poorly due to complications (which led to his being born early) he was artificially paralysed and ventilated in intensive care after being resucitated a couple of times and having a blood transfusion. DH was told that we needed to give him a name because he probably wouldn't make it and I was told that he was probably severely brain damaged (he isn't thank goodness). He moved onto CPAP after 3 or 4 days and was off that within 24 hours and moved down to high dependancy 2 days later. He was a very poorly little boy but was home within 17 days of his birth!!!! It's amazing how tough and resiliant they are even when they are tiny.

Congratulations on becoming an auntie
As the others have said ventilation is very common in prem babies sometimes it can just be because the lungs have not matured & still need time.
DS2 was born at 28wks & was ventilated & then CPAP & then O2.
It is a very scary time for the parents but they must ask questions if they need to know more IME the staff are only too happy to spend time explaining things.
Don't forget to do all the normal new baby things eg taking photos etc, its scary now but they are still his first few days/weeks & it is nice to have them to look back on.
Best wishes

my cousin recently had her baby 6 weeks early and she was home with him about 2 weeks later?? i think it was! but he's a little smasher. needed help with feeding tube my cousin ebm and he was fed that and then went on to the bottle. he was 4lb something

thank you so much everyone. you've really reassured me and i've passed what you've said on to my family, and will speak to my sister about asking questions/taking pictures etc. i feel so much better now just knowing he's not the only one going through this.

thank you again x

Bit late to this but my ds was born 6 weeks early and had respiratory distress - he was ventilated, then CPAP, then oxygen through nasal prongs for weeks because he had bad reflux and kept aspirating milk into his lungs. He was in NICU/SCBU for 7 weeks. He is now 15 months old and you would never know there had been anything wrong with him, apart from my unnecessary paranoia about minor coughs! The first few days in NICU are very tough because you have no idea what is going on, what all the alarms and monitors are for etc - we also found it difficult to talk to the paeds although the nurses were much more helpful. Definitely agree with taking photos. Weirdly I now like looking at photos of my tiny scrap of a baby in a incubator with tubes all over him and seeing what a gorgeous heffalumpy toddler he's turned into.

Best of luck to your little nephew, hope he is home soon.