Milestone 1: Breathing on his own

On Saturday, the Neonatal doctor advised that Joe can take off the nasal cannula to see how he does. (They did this last Wednesday and put the cannula back in on Thursday.)  Basically, they told me they would just keep trying to see if Joey would sustain.  Worse case scenario would be that they put him back on it, if he continued to have apena or brady episodes.

So, this sight of Joey with a nasal cannula is gone!  He is successfully breathing on his own without it and only has 2-3 episodes per day.  He is able to pull himself out of those episodes without stimulation from the nurses, which is a good thing!

What are apenda and brady episodes?  Here is a snipit an article I pulled off the internet:

Apnea and bradycardia are two terms a parent of a preemie may become all too familiar with. What exactly are apnea and bradycardia?

Apnea means a period in which breathing stops. In premature babies, apnea is any pause in breathing that lasts longer than 20 seconds, causing bradycardia, or a drop in the baby’s blood oxygen level.

Bradycardia means a slowed heart rate. In premature babies, bradycardia is a heart rate of less than 80 beats per minute.

In premature babies, apnea and bradycardia often occur together, along with low blood oxygen levels. First, apnea occurs and the baby will stop breathing. Because the baby isn’t breathing, blood oxygen levels will fall. The heart slows down in response to the low blood oxygen levels. Together, apnea and bradycardia are often called “As and Bs” or "spells", and a low blood oxygen level is often called a desaturation or “desat.”