Well Child Check

So, an addendum to my previous post:

I had noticed with my baby that since birth she had a really low-pitched cry. Then I began to notice that she sometimes struggled to get air...kind of like her airway would stick when she tried to draw air in. This is normal right in the first few days or week or so after birth but when she was about 3 1/2 weeks old, I noticed it really noticeably and felt like it should be resolved by then, or at least getting better.

This has been noticeable to me and when I ran it by a sister (Kristin), she seemed to agree that she seemed to be struggling a bit (right? if I remember right...at least you agreed that I should have her checked if I was noticing this issue). Then just before her well-child check, a cousin saw her for the first time and almost right away after taking her in her arms, asked if it was her normal cry to cry so quietly and also that she seemed to have pretty poor neck control and also seemed to be so uncomfortable or unhappy for some reason.

Well, at her check-up 2 days later, I asked the pediatrician about this. As she was examining her, she noticed what I was talking about (although, of course, she wasn't half as bad as she sometimes could get with the struggling to get a breath). She said that this condition is called tracheomalacia. It can be quite normal for babies to have and they typically outgrow it within a few months. It's just a softer, "flappy" airway. Most babies have a stiffer airway but some have a bit of an underdeveloped trachea that can then make the airway floppy when they especially are upset, eating, congested, or lying on their backs...seems to get better if on tummy or upright.

Long story short, it doesn't seem to be anything to worry about typically. I spoke with a pediatrician in church this morning too and she said that she's only once had a patient they had to trach for the condition to improve. All others that she's seen with this condition eventually outgrow this.

I looked it up also online on a site that my cousin sent me and it looks like some things to watch them a little closer on is when they are congested or have upper respiratory infections...these can more easily develop into pneumonia on babies with this condition.

So, hopefully she will get better all the time until she no longer has to struggle at all. When she's calm though, she really is fine and doesn't have to work at all at breathing...it's just when she gets upset or sometimes when she's nursing that it gets a little worrisome for me.

Alright, on to bed!!! :)