One Day You Will- Lady Antebellum
December is a traditionally known as a month of gift giving. The NICU was given a present of a preemie population boom. As the babies kept arriving, the NICU ward had to make decisions about relocating some of the preemies. Gracie has been the most stable and the star of the ward. Divas such as she need attention from nurses; however, the attention was nonessential to her health. The staff decided to bump Gracie into the “feeders and growers” room!
Being awarded this title was like winning first place in a one person race. Seeing that Gracie was the best in the class of the worst was mind-boggling and encouraging. She still had the lowest birth weight and was the youngest gestationally.
I remember that I once admired and envied the babies in the feeders and growers section. Babies were being rocked in the arms of mothers and nurses while some were feeding from a bottle in office and rocking chairs.
Gracie was still a two pounder. The gamble with increasing the feedings to 22 mls every two hours with one hour rest has paid off. Increased dosages of her diuretic allowed her to rid herself of fluid weight. Her true weight exploded to 2 lbs 8 ozs and then 2 lbs 10 ozs. It wasn’t long before we hit 2 lbs 12 ozs. The painstaking goal of three pounds was only four small ounces away.
Receiving the classification of the best of the worst is lot like watching the movie The Bad News Bears. It wasn’t that the status wasn’t acceptable; being the best of the worst would just bring consequences. The ophthalmologist came around and informed the staff and us that Gracie seemed to have retinopathy stage one.
Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP) is a condition of premature infants which causes abnormal blood vessel development in the retina. In a normal pregnancy, the retina develops three months after conception and doesn’t complete until birth at full term. Being born prematurely halts or slows the development of the vessels towards the clear gel which fills the back of the eye. These vessels are fragile and weak and can bleed in the eye.
This may cause scar tissues which can pull the retina loose from the inner surface of the eye potentially leading to vision loss.
As research continues to make inroads into the field of neonatal care, the retinopathy rates have decreased dramatically. However, because very premature babies have a better chance of survival due to medical science, they are also surviving which leads to an increase occurrence in retinopathy. Science will have to progress to combat this condition as it becomes common again.
There are five stages of Retinopathy of Prematurity. Stage one is idly abnormal blood vessel growth. Stage two is when blood vessel growth is moderately abnormal. Stage Three is severely abnormal blood vessel growth. Stage four is severely abnormal blood vessel growth with a partially detached retina. Stage V is complete retinal detachment.
Symptoms of severe retinopathy include abnormal eye movements, crossed eyes, severe nearsightedness and white looking pupils.Possible treatment includes cronetherapy (freeze) the creation of future abnormal blood vessels. Laser therapy prevents the blood vessels from growing, but must be done quickly after diagnosis before scaring and detachment.If detachment becomes present then surgery must be performed, the surgery leads to poor vision.
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