Tummy Time and a Slideshow

Because preemies spend the last few months of their gestation outside the womb, their muscular development takes a somewhat different path than with full-term babies. Instead of floating free in a cushion of fluid for those last 14 weeks, Hannah was on her back or side in an incubator; the breathing tube prevented her from lying on her stomach. Because of this, the muscle tone of preemies is not as evenly distributed as in other babies . . . the muscles used when lying on their back are more developed that the rest, and preemies sometimes develop an aversion to lying on their tummies.

So we've been encouraged to place Hannah on her stomach for a few minutes every day, to give her a chance to develop the arm and neck strength needed to raise her head and eventually crawl (in essence, we've got her doing push-ups). This is always tricky with the nasal cannula in place, because her face is against the play mat, and the cannula pops out of her nose when she twists her head. But lately, she's been oxygenating well enough without the cannula that we can take it off during tummy time, and she can move a lot more freely. And she actually seems to enjoy it until she gets bored and wants to see what else is going on above floor level.

I don't think she understands yet that she's supposed to be working on push-ups, because she mostly just tongues the play mat until it gets soggy. Here's a picture of her taking a break from licking the play mat clean.


And I've put together a slideshow of photos from birth to year-end. It's interesting to see the progression from 1.5 to 10.5 pounds, and from anxiety to elation. If you've been following the story, you've probably seen all of these photos except one, which I never posted because it was a little blurry and quite sad at the time. It's easier to take now, since we know the story has a happy ending. If you're using a PC, click here to watch the high-res slideshow. If you're on a Mac or Linux machine, there's a lower-resolution version here on Youtube.