Refluxing

I'm becoming more and more convinced that Greyson has acid reflux. Over the past few days I've been studying him while he eats (or to be more accurate: while food is being deposited in his stomach) and the boy looks uncomfortable. About 15 min after he starts eating he gets all red faced and rears his head back and arches his back. He grunts and whines and just looks pained then his stats drop and gets all waxy or purple-gray. It's not a good look for him.

He started on the Zantac yesterday at 5:00pm and it should take a few days to see some improvement. You can bet I'll be watching him like a hawk!

He is still nursing great and I'm hoping that Thursday (when he is 34 weeks gestation age*)we will try bottle feeding too - that way we can see how much he is eating. Right now his is still getting at least 1/2 of his feeds via the ng** tube even after nursing and full feeds through it when I'm not there. I'm looking forward to when they remove the ng tube. The ng tube is just exacerbating the problem because with the tube he cannot completely close his esophagus which allows more reflux. The poor little man just can't win.

*until his due date no one cares how long since he was born - everything is based on gestational age. So right now he is considered 33 weeks old. Babies don't develop the reflexes to coordinate sucking, swallowing and breathing until 34 weeks. When Greyson nurses it goes like this: suck, suck, suck, pant, pant, pant, swallow, suck, suck, suck, suck, forget to breathe, stats drop, get patted on the back, pant, pant, pant, swallow, repeat. It's quite the process.

**ng = nasal gastric