Dixie- once again sorry for not responding more promptly.
My boy was discharged along with me and his brother 2 days after birth. Before we left the hospital he had a scan and they watched him pee a couple of times to check that the flow was strong and constant. They gave us the antibiotics. He was then asked to come back for another scan in a couple of weeks as an outpatient and for a consultation with the kidney specialist soon after.
Their level of worry depends partly on the size of the dilation- the bigger it is the more cause for concern. His was, annoyingly, just on the wrong side of normal- it was about 10mm, if I recall correctly, so it needed monitoring even though the consultant was quite reassuring about the likelihood of all being well.
He was scanned again at about 4 months, I think, and at the follow up visit (2 months or so later due to rubbish NHS appointment system!)the consultant felt it was safe to discharge him, though she said he should be immediately re-referred if he contracted a urinary tract infection (UTI). So basically he had 3 scans and 2 consultations, all as an outpatient, and was then discharged.
We had a tendency to panic every time he had a fever for a short time, immediately worried that it was a UTI, but he's been absolutely fine.
As far as I could tell from speaking to other parents whose children had slightly more serious conditions, everything possible is done on an out patient basis. One mum said that her wee boy (about 2 at the time I met him)had had the same thing in utero as our baby. Her son did contract regular UTIs and had to have urine analysis and blood tests every few months to monitor the condition. Her boy was gorgeous and she was remarkably laid back and reassuring (at that time we were still a bit worried). She said that he might have to have an operation at some point but that at the moment they were steering as clear as possible of invasive procedures since sometimes these conditions improve as the child grows- again the wait and see approach. However, she knew exactly what to look out for and had very quick access- unlike us!- to the consultant(who as I said before is a complete gem)when things weren't so hot on the UTI front. What I really loved about this consultant was her absolute commitment to NOT intervening unless absolutely necessary. I felt I could be very confident that any treatment she advised for my boy would be essential, since she was very reluctant to cause distress to children unless there were strong medical reasons to do so.
One of the stressful things about renal pelvis dilation is that it could all be normal for your child or it could necessitate further investigation and possibly ultimately an operation. It's hard to tell- there's only so much you can glean from a scan, so if things look problematic on the scan they look at doing blood tests etc to see if they can pinpoint the problem. When I was first told about the dilation I was very paranoid that my boy might end up having an operation when he was perfectly fine and thriving but Dr Deal quickly disabused me of this notion. She didn't even give him a blood test on the grounds that he was showing no signs of illness whatsoever. I really hope you get a great consultant like her.
I think Fairy is absolutely right in her post too-in a way it's good that they can catch these things in the womb- at least if, in a worst case senario- an operation IS needed, your baby won't be in the kind of pain that her poor son was because everyone will be on the lookout for exactly this kind of problem.
HTH and take care of yourself, Dixie.
Scummy
P.S. Have you got any feelings about whether this baby is a boy or a girl? It seems like mainly boys are prone to this sort of thing... Having said that I was convinced my 2 were girls even after the renal pelvis thing was spotted!