31 weeks: the stats

Today Caley is 26 days old, with a gestational age of 31 weeks. She's up to a little over 1 pound, 12 ounces in weight and she's about 13.5 inches long. And she's had a very stable couple of days -- so we thought we'd give you a little more detail on her current condition.

Caley continues to be on the CPAP machine, but is slowly weaning down on the amount of air pressure she receives from it. The air she receives right now is anywhere between 24% and 32% oxygen, depending mostly on what position she's laying in and whether she's being held. (Room air is 21% oxygen, for the sake of comparison.) She's receiving continuous feeds of milk at a rate of 2.5 ml per hour and digesting appropriately. The milk continues to be supplemented with TPN and lipids, but once she's up to her full feed volume of milk, those will go away. Caley still is receiving antibiotics for the infection she developed last week, and also is receiving EPO, a drug that helps her body produce red blood cells. She continues to get her caffeine dose every 12 hours. 

Caley spends most of her days sleeping and growing. Now that she's more stable and not requiring so many tests and near-constant attention, the nurses try to minimize the number of times they disrupt her sleep. So every 4 to 6 hours, they change her diaper, measure the circumference of her stomach, check her temperature and other vitals, suction out her mouth, and do whatever other care she may need. If her stats drop in between those times (and it's usually her blood oxygen level that does), the nurses will check on her and possibly adjust her position or her oxygen. The only other disruptions in her day are generally when Mom and Dad hold her, though she sleeps while we hold her once she gets comfortable. And we do that as much as possible!

Looking forward to an uneventful journey to week 32.