"Failure to thrive"

Little Miss Lillian was admitted to the Children's Hospital for three days because of "failure to thrive". In other words, she was not gaining weight like the pedi wanted her to. Actually, she was not gaining weight at all for over a week. So not only did they tell us we had to take her straight to the hospital to admit her, they tell us that she has "failure to thrive". Then we get to the hospital and they ask "Reason for admittance?" and I have to say "failure to thrive". One would think they could come up with better phrasing for parents already in a stressful situation.

Anywho, Lillian had to have an IV put in, and had three veins blown in the process. She had to have a catheter put in, it actually worked on the 7th try. She had to have cheast ex rays done and have a heart monitor on continuously. Every half hour they took her blood pressure and temperature. It was awful. But every test they did for really bad things came back negative. The only thing they found was slightly elevated liver enzymes, but could not find a reason for that.

She had previously had some jaundice and thrush. We believe the thrush is what was causing her not to want to eat, although she still should have gained some weight. She gained 5 ounces while she was in the hospital, although their scales are different than the doctors office. According to the doctors office, she was 5 lbs 9 ozs when he had her admitted and according to the hospital she was 5 lbs 2 ozs when she was admitted and 5 lbs 7 ozs when she was discharged.

We have changed her feeding to every two hours during the day but only when she wakes up during the night. We have also started fortifying her breast milk bottles with extra calories to help fatten her up. And it looks like we are going to have to start doing some formula soon, as she is eating more than I can give her.

We have a follow up appointment on Monday at the doctor's office. Pray everything goes well. I never want to have to go through having her in the hospital again, it was horrible.