We spent the better part of Thursday at CHEO as Emma had 3 follow-up appointments. First, we saw the Neonatal team, the clinic of specialists that provides ongoing assessment of NICU graduates.
As parents of a micropreemie, it's often difficult to objectively judge what is "normal" baby behavior (within the natural variation that exists with infants) and what needs to be more actively managed, given a micropeemie's increased chance of developing "invisible" disabilities. As such, it's important to periodically have a professional gauge how Emma is progressing in terms of her communication, socialization and motor development. [Emma had her first assessment at the clinic
back in May and her scores on all of the measures were then
within normal limits].
After a physical examination, the team observed Emma at play and asked us to answer a fairly involved set of questions from the relatively standard
"Ages & Stages Questionnaire"
to help quantify her abilities compared to her
age adjusted cohorts (other 10 month old babies).
Once again, the results showed that Emma is "Typically Developing" meaning that her scores in the 5 developmental areas assessed (Communication, Fine Motor, Gross Motor, Personal-Social and Problem Solving) are "typical" of a baby in that age range. Basically, the results indicated that Emma is achieving important developmental milestones at an age-adjusted appropriate rate.
As before, Emma's "strongest" scores were in the Personal-Social area [the social butterfly that she is :) ] while her "weakest" area was gross motor development. Again, the team was not concerned by this, as these results are expected of a micropreemie, and we'll continue our exercises/activities so Emma can build up her strength. We'll be back at the clinic in January so the team can continue to keep a close eye on her developmental skills.
Our second appointment was at the Audiology clinic where Emma had another hearing test. As before, her hearing was deemed "perfect" and she has now been discharged from the Infant Hearing Clinic. A nurse will be in touch with us next spring, just to make sure Emma's hearing and speech are developing well, but there is now no reason to be concerned about her hearing!
Finally, Emma was also seen by the Respirologist. While she's had a couple of colds over the summer, she's done well with them and we've (thankfully) not had any repeat visits to the E.R. because of respiratory distress. The doc is still a bit concerned about her BPD so we'll soon go into "hibernation mode" again and restrict our visitors as Emma is still very susceptible to colds and germs, especially over the winter months. Luckily, Emma was approved for Synagis injections again (that's the very expensive vaccine to help prevent RSV, a relatively common virus that can be particularly nasty if a preemie is affected), so hopefully we won't have any repeat hospitalizations this winter!
P.S. Emma is now just over 28 inches tall and weighs in at 19.2 pounds, putting her solidly in the 50th percentile for her corrected age of almost 10 months!
