Update on Jaxon's Progress

As of yesterday, Jaxon is almost off all his support. Initially, he had breathing assistance with a CPAP and then a nasal canula. Now he has been breathing on his own for for a week and a half. He also had help keeping his body temperature regulated with a small water bed heating pad and warm humidity pumped into his incubator. Now both of those are gone and have been for about 2 weeks. His incubator is still heated, but the temperature is being decreased until he is weaned off and able to regulate his temperature by himself. He has also had and IV since he was born, mainly to receive supplemental nutrition and his antibiotics (because of his infection); the IV is still there as a saline lock, but now the supplemental nutrition is gone. If his cultures from yesterday show that the infection is gone and he has no need for antibiotics then the IV will be completely removed. Dr. Paidisetty, his other Neonatologist, took him off the supplemental nutrition because he is doing so well with his feedings they can no longer give it to him. He started out "eating" 1.5mL of breastmilk and now he is at 26mL. Since he's off the nutrition, if he doesn't show that he is gaining weight then he may need a fortifier added to his breastmilk, but we'll wait and see. I imagine he probably will need the fortifier. He also got to "try-out" a bottle yesterday. I wasn't there but his nurse Barb said he did really well sucking, but once he got a little liquid out he didn't know what to do with it. Barb said practice makes perfect, so the NICU nurses will continue to help him figure this out and once he gets a better handle on it Eric and I will be able to bottle feed him. For now we give him a little milk while he sucks on his pacifier. This helps him to put together sucking and milk. He also gets to practice his suck, swallow, and breathe. Well, I think that is it for now. Such simple things but such huge milestones for him. Eric and I are so proud of his progress and we love him so much.