I need help - cat coma

[kittyrescue]

Testing name change first

Sounds like you are getting good advice from your emergency vet. Fingers crossed for feisty kitten!

I'm still up, can't sleep now worrying about the kitty! Been frantically refreshing my page looking for updates

Am going to bed now (to toss and turn and pray for little kitties!) but will check back first thing tomorrow for updates - fingers toes and eyes crossed that she survives the night

Goodnight and thanks MrsL. She just had a suck for a bit longer so some improvement. I'm going to bed too but the box is next to my bed so I can wake every hour or so and try and put her back on. Am going to set my alarm for 4am to properly wake and assess. I doubt I'll really sleep but am quite knackered and have baby to BF too at some point around 6am!

.

I haven't slept at all.

Kitty is still with us. I am not sure whether it is feeding. All through the night it was fairly quiet and kitten remained snuggled up with the others. Whenever I looked, she didn't appear to be latched on as the other two are continually but she was in the right place as if maybe she had been.

She mewed a few times and mother cat tended to to her so isn't being rejected as yet.

I keep trying to re-latch her on but she is very disinterested yet will still suck my finger well. Just not the nipple.

I rubbed her tummy myself this morning and she produced urine which makes me think she may have taken some milk ????

Would she produce a fair bit of urine from the two raindroplets sized feeds of sugar solution I gave her (not even that much) and few damp fingers worth of EBM?

I'm going to vets in a min to get kitten formula but obviously want to avoid giving that unnecessarily.

Sounds very positive to me kittyrescue! It sounds to me like kitty has had something from mum.

Some babies are slow starters and being cold for a long time may have just slowed things a bit more, you are doing really well just keep doing what you are doing and see what happens!

That's great news

It definitely sounds as though she's been drinking from mum, and now she's made it through her first night you should see a vast improvement throughout the course of today as she gets stronger. Definitely get a feeding kit from the vet to have on stand-by - it won't do any harm to top her up if you don't think she's getting enough, and a proper kitten-sized bottle and teat will help her to develop her suck reflex (after sucking your finger, mum's nipple probably seems tiny and difficult to keep hold of!). The fact that she's feeding from mum even part of the time will help the bonding process, and I don't think she'll be rejected now (they tend to do it straight away). It's probably a good idea to weigh all the kittens on your kitchen scales so you can keep an eye on their development - do this at the same time every day and make a note of the weights each time. You'll soon see if she's lagging behind.

Excellent idea re weighing mrsl!

glad she made it through the night. keep us updated!

how is she doing kitty?

Well, she is feeding now. I have kitten formula just in case but she seems to have finally grasped it and apparently has heaps of energy.

Thank you all for your wise words.

So glad to hear that, been checking for updates all day

I've been doing some reading trying to figure out how on earth the kitten could be 'dead' all day and then come back to life. It seems that it may have been something like hypothermia which was in effect therapuetic. I have read about hypothermia being induced in cardiac arrest patients as it minimises the damage caused by lack of oxygen to the cells.

Our kitten was stone cold and this may have saved it as the body reacts to extreme cold in a way that means it requires less oxygen.

Does anyone know if this sounds a likely explanation.

There was no sign of life, and believe me, on first finding the kittens I was looking for ANY sign of life at all.

I definitely think hypothermia was at play - when the body temperature drops that low, the body enters a kind of 'suspended animation' where the heart rate, breathing etc are barely noticable. She's very, very lucky that you found her when you did. That should be her name - Lucky

So glad the little kitten is doing ok. Little fighter, hope he/she continues to improve.

You'll have to find it a lovely home when he/she is old enough, or maybe keep it?

So glad to hear she is doing well- well done!

Yes, it does sound like hypothermia was a factor in her survival. If it makes you feel better, one of my vet friends did simialr with a puppy after a C-section- left it for dead only to find it alive next day! (thank God it wasn't me ) so it can be hard to tell. Sounds like a happy outcome though!

no idea - miracle kitten! glad she is doing well though.

I was also rooting for the kitten all night. You have done a great job. Our first cat was called Felix which is 'Lucky' in Latin. Felicity for a girl.

Kittyrescue - how is she doing now? It's a remarkable story. Well done you for all of your hard work, she sounds like a trouper.

Jooly - can I ask your advice on a related point? We're fostering a queen and litter of 4. The kits are two weeks old. The mum is still very young, and though she's doing brilliantly most of the time, we were a bit worried about her over the weekend because she was feeding them in odd combinations instead of all together. Before we had time to get too worried, the mum settled down and they've all been feeding marvellously and are full of beans. However, if that were to happen again, could I do any harm by topping them up with cimicat? Perhaps I've read too much "breast is best" literature, but I worried about nipple confusion or her milk supply decreasing if they didn't take so much from her.

Quick update:

Thank you all again for your brilliant advice and support.

Little tabby kitten is doing very well along with the other two and is obviously a week old now. Almost as podgy as the others and definitely more feisty.

I am so pleased that the sleepless nights did the trick but mortified that the poor thing was written off as dead by me for a whole day even if the hypothermia thing may have saved it.

delighted smile

Why did you feel the need to name change?

Have you decided if you are going to keep both kittens?