Just Another Baby

When Hannah came home nine months ago after three months in the hospital, she was on 7 medications: five that we drew up with syringes and measured into her bottles and two that she inhaled through a nebulizer. And then of course there was the oxygen cannula taped to her face for the first three months. These were all prescribed when she weighed six pounds, so as she grew to her current weight of 18 pounds, those doses were all effectively reduced to a third of their original strength, measured by body weight. For the past few months, we've been down to the last two medicines, both treatments for gastric reflux, common in preemies whose digestive systems had to start work before they were fully formed. Three weeks ago, we stopped the Reglan, which speeds us the contractions in the digestive system (peristalsis) slightly, so the stomach contents dump into the intestines faster, reducing the likelihood that they will back up into the esophagus and cause reflux. The normal approach is to stop the meds and wait a couple weeks to see if it had any negative effect. For example, the first few times we stopped the Reglan, Hannah seemed to spit up a bit more, so we resumed the dose.

This last time we stopped the Reglan, she seemed just fine. So, last Tuesday, we stopped the last of her medicines, Prevacid. Prevacid is a proton pump inhibitor, which, although it sounds like something Han Solo would ask Chewie to patch into the hyperdrive, is actually just a medicine that decreases stomach acid so that if "spit happens", it is less irritating to the walls of the esophagus (by slowing down the cell membranes that pump protons in the stomach lining to increase acidity, hence the name).

Anyway, Hannah has gone several days now without the Prevacid, and seems just fine without it. This is a milestone, because the Prevacid was the last bit of baggage from the NICU that served as a reminder that she was born three and a half months early. Now that it's gone, she is officially "Just Another Baby", no different really than one born full term.

Except of course that we appreciate her so much more, knowing how much she has overcome and how lucky we were to take her home with no long-term disadvantages.

Here's a video I put together for the grandparents, of just another unmedicated baby, smiling and laughing.