Home on oxygen

Hi, mummas! My ex 23 weeker has been discharged on low flow oxygen 0.1 , and honestly, I haven't gotten any sleep because I'm always checking the prongs are on, if he is ok and it's driving insane! Pls tell me how u coped with the transition from NICU where you had all the monitors and support from clinicians, and how long was your bub on oxygen at home?
Like
Share Mobile
Share
  • Share

Show your support

Hello! We have been home for 3 months on oxygen. Does your baby have an apnea monitor as well? Our apnea monitor only goes off if her heart rate is high or low, or if she stops breathing. We can’t actively monitor her O2 sats. We didn’t sleep a lot the first couple of days but I was also getting up every 3 hours with her to feed, so that gave me extra time to watch her. She now sleeps through the night and if I wake up, I just watch her breaths. How are you securing the cannula? Does it fall off a lot? We use duoderm on her skin, then cannula and then tape over the cannula. Her cannula stays pretty well unless she’s got her face all squished when she’s on her belly. Or if she rips it off.

Hi Shelly. Thanks for your response. We have no monitors at all - he never had apneoas whilst in hospital and few days prior to discharge, they did an Air test (went for an hour without oxugen) and they said he doesn't need the oxygen saturation monitor as he can go for an hour without desats under 80%. I know I can buy monitor like owlet but he's doctors and nurses advised against it, saying we need to normalise being home and not be too clinical about his care. We know the signs to look out for if he needs more oxygen. For securing the prongs, I use deoderm and mefix tape. We change this almost daily cos he pulls on it 🫠 I know there are tapes I can buy, but I'm scared he'd rip them off and end up scared. The current management is safer for his skin, even though it is a night mare to put alone lol.

I’d say if his doctors don’t recommend any other monitoring then go with that, just give yourself grace! It takes time to adjust. When we go in for sleep studies, I still watch the monitors- it’s like a comfort to be able to see it again but it does get better! Our tape we replace probably every 3 days. We don’t do daily baths still because her skin gets really dried out. If I can attach pictures I’ll send you the tape we use. The duoderm we had to get like Walmart brand but it still protects her skin! And she has gotten better about not pulling the cannulas off. She still does sometimes but definitely not as often. Also I definitely know the struggle of redoing it all alone, but that gets easier with practice too 😊

Honestly if the owlet will give you peace of mind, I would just get it. But just be aware that they sometimes have false alarms and those may make you more stressed out. My nicu nurse uses the owlet on her kid and she loves it. But she did warn me about the false alarms. I think you have to do what’s best for you. If it is going to give you better sleep, get it! When my baby was discharged, I was certain I needed the owlet to monitor her. However, time went on and I was fine without it. However my baby wasn’t on oxygen.

Thank you very much for sharing @Marija The nurses that come in are amazing, and we've been talking about me getting the social worker to make the psychology referral... had told them I'm ok previously. Congratulations on your baby weaning off oxygen! 👏

Read more on Peanut
Trending in our community